write the softest words and kiss them
by allatraka
Summary: Full title: write the softest words and kiss them that i may at least touch my lips where yours have been Summary: "I'm trying." "Try harder."
1. Chapter 1

i. "It's not about having a good time. You want to fill the void left by Marina." "Nadia, please, don't bring that up now." "Guzmán, listen to me."

The day Polo returned to Las Encinas Guzmán beat him bloody. He'd already slammed Polo into a wall and kicked him repeatedly before three teachers were able to wrestle him back. They held him by the arms, by the neck, were shouting in his ear for him to stop, and still he surged against them, snarling.

When Principal Muñoz came, phone in her hand and school nurse rushing up behind her, she suspended Guzmán for a week. He threw a string of expletives at her, both for her and for Ander, words so denigrating it was like he'd had them tailor made for the fury in him. He wrenched himself from the grip of the teachers holding him back and pointed his finger in her face. "You're a fucking failure. My sister was murdered under your watch, and what did you do? What have you done? What the fuck are you still doing here?" He opened his arms wide, stepping back from her, turning in a circle and staring at the ring of people who'd gathered to watch him. His eyes were wide, like he was on a drug, and ringed red, and Polo's blood stained his knuckles and his white school shirt. "Why the hell is this motherfucker here?" He screamed this at Principal Muñoz. But all she did was stand calmly with her arms crossed over her chest. "Two weeks," she said. "Continue and you will not return to this school."

Guzmán spit in her face.

Nadia watched this from the edge of the students who circled the scene. She hadn't called anyone to come stop Guzmán this time, not because she thought he was right, but because she'd already told him what she thought of his using violence wherever Marina was concerned. She knew stopping him this once wouldn't stop him in the future. Even before Marina's murder he'd beaten a classmate to within an inch of his life. Marina'd thought of her HIV status as unfortunate, an accident, but Guzmán had thought of it as an act of violence directed against her, and he'd answered with one of his own.

There was something between him and Marina, a line like some kind of live wire that made him feel the only way he could answer for her was with his fists and a show of power. Nadia could see the way he answered every other frustration he had — his father using drugs, Lu making a public performance out of their relationship — with sarcasm or resignation or intimidation; it was only with Marina that it turned into something more. She wasn't sure what it was, didn't think that if someone hurt her, or if someone hurt Omar, that either of them would react like Guzmán, but it made her want to ask him about Marina. In the eight months since her death they'd only just brushed up against her absence. Nadia had never seen him cry, had never heard him say he missed Marina, and she herself had never told him that Marina was the first friend she'd made at Las Encinas, a person she'd told things to that she hadn't shared with anyone else.

When the crowd parted to let Guzmán through, Nadia caught sight of his face. Everything was so stark on it — there, mixed in with his freckles and his widow's peak, his grief; there, his rage; there, the emptiness he felt in the face of a dead sister. Nadia didn't look away, but held his gaze so that he knew she saw past the spectacle he put on.

The next day, as news of Guzmán's suspension wound its way through Las Encinas, through group chats and whispers at desks, Nadia went to Muñoz's office. She felt a sense of trepidation standing there. The last time she'd been there Muñoz had told her she couldn't wear her hijab on school grounds. Nadia held her notebook close to her chest and when Muñoz asked how she could be of help she had to clear her throat twice before her voice came out even.

"I'm wondering if you intend to expel Guzmán."

A look of confusion passed over Muñoz's face. "Excuse me?"

"I think it would be a mistake," Nadia said. "I think you should show him leniency, as he's a student here. The stated principle of the school is a commitment to a liberal education, and the board of directors makes a point of avoiding shaping students through punishment and discipline." She'd prepared these words the night before in her room, writing them down and practicing them in front of the mirror. She was so used to agreeing with her professors and other authority figures, to trusting their judgment, used to pleasing them and being praised by them; it felt strange to be questioning one.

Muñoz folded her hands together and considered Nadia with a furrowed brow. "Am I to understand you're here to ask me to allow Mr. Osuna to remain at Las Encinas?"

"Yes," Nadia said.

Muñoz laughed. "Ms. Shanaa, I've known Guzmán since he was a child. His family has donated to this school since its inception, and in fact are the reason for your enrollment. He hardly needs his case plead by you."

Nadia took in a sharp breath. She remembered how powerless she'd felt that first day at Las Encinas, when Muñoz had called her in and told her to remove her hijab. Nadia couldn't understand her. Muñoz had fabricated a rule that only affected her, and yet she'd taken Omar in. She covered up an innocent student who Guzmán and her own son had assaulted, but wanted to punish Guzmán for doing the same to the person who'd murdered Marina. She'd been the one to out Omar to their father, a blunder that had meant closer watch and more restrictions for Omar; all summer long he and Ander had only been able to see each other for a few minutes a day, and his every move had been watched and accounted for. But now Muñoz, someone Nadia thought of as a stranger, saw her brother more often than she did. All summer Nadia had watched the tension in her family and had been able to do nothing to ease it, a feeling of uselessness she hadn't been familiar with because she'd always thought that every problem had a solution, if only you worked hard enough for it.

"You don't act like you've known Guzmán all his life," Nadia said. "You don't even act like you know he's a student under your care. He's right. Marina was killed here. She was sixteen years old. I'm older than she was now, and so is Guzmán, and so is Ander. I think, considering the circumstances, you can excuse his behavior."

"Excuse his spitting in my face?"

"No, excuse his grieving in public."

Principal Muñoz nodded slowly. "I can see your intelligence, Nadia, and your compassion. We value those traits here. But it is not your place to defend a student who has broken near every rule of this school, who has personally insulted me, and done so flauntingly, and it's certainly not your place to tell me how to do my job. Do you understand?"

Nadia understood that if she weren't a scholarship student, if her parents had enough money to lend their complaints power, she would not have been given a lecture about the limits of what she was allowed. She'd fought to stay at the school, argued with her father for it. She didn't need anyone to tell her what her place at Las Encinas was because she earned it every day with her work and her grades, protected it when someone tried to take it from her. Maybe Muñoz was right to say that Guzmán didn't need her to defend him. But Nadia had more than Guzmán on her mind. She had what she felt for him, and what she owed both him and herself because of those feelings.

"I do," she said finally. She made her voice purposefully soft, lowered her head so she wouldn't seem uncooperative or argumentative. "But I hope you'll still consider what I've said."

On his first day back at Las Encinas Guzmán walked straight up to Polo where he stood at his locker. He placed a hand on Polo's shoulder, gentle almost, a gesture asking him to step aside. Then he punched a dent into his locker. He looked Polo straight in the eye, not saying a word, and started punching the wall next to it, one, two, three times, kept punching until his blood smeared the brick. He stopped only when Principal Muñoz arrived. No teachers held him back. The ring of students this time was wider, as if they were afraid if they came too close he'd turn on them. Principal Muñoz simply said, "That's enough," and Guzmán stopped. He let his hand drop to his side, and Nadia saw it hanging there, limp, skin and flesh peeling off to show tender pink and white underneath. Polo was ashen and shaking.

At the emergency room, doctors told Guzmán's parents he'd broken his hand in three places and that he'd need two operations. Six weeks in the hospital, long enough for a confession from Ander, for Cayetana's mother to come forward with the trophy that had been used to murder Marina, and for Polo to be put under house arrest while awaiting trial. For those six weeks Guzmán's seat remained empty in the classes Nadia shared with him shared, and she heard little from him. She missed him. She wasn't surprised that she did, but she was surprised by how much. It wasn't a feeling that could be put aside while she focused on studying or counting down the drawer in the shop at night. It inched into even the smallest moments of her days. She missed him when she brushed her teeth in the morning and realized she wouldn't see him that day, missed him when she sat at the edge of the pool during Phys Ed, missed him when she opened her notebook and found random notes and scribbles he'd made in it. She was so full of longing for him it felt like an ache. She carried it around like a sack of water tied to her chest.

She found herself thinking of how Guzmán walked down the hallways, with long strides and shoulders squared, and then of how when she kissed him he bent his head to her, how the back of his neck felt under her fingers, and how when he was turned on even the tips of his ears flushed red. She thought of her first impression of him, that he was loud and arrogant and too assured of his place in the world. She hadn't been wrong, she knew those things about him were true; but now she also knew that he was loyal to a fault, and that he didn't adhere to ideologies but instead centered himself around people, and that allowed him a pliancy, an ability to accept people when they changed, when they were different from what he knew of them, and not turn away from them. She thought of what he was like with her when they were alone, of her favorite things about him — his teasing, his flirting, how intensely earnest he could be — and of what people thought when they heard the name Guzmán Nunier Osuna. She realized there was a difference. It wasn't that one was more real than the other, or that he showed her something more authentic. It was that he chose who he wanted to be with different people. Nadia wasn't sure if even he knew he did this. And even when he was hard and ice cold, on the edge of rage, he could slip into vulnerability so easily. Each emotion was so easy for him to access and express, and it made Nadia realize how deeply she kept whatever she felt, how she had to search inside herself to bring it to the surface. He operated as though he would destroy anyone who hurt the people he loved, and it was true that he would try. But Nadia noticed that when the people he loved got hurt, he ended up getting himself hurt, too. The drinking, the drugging, even the fighting; it was like he was looking to be punished.

When Guzmán was let out of the hospital, Nadia wanted to soak him up. She wanted make up for all the time he'd been away from her, be greedy and save up in case she ever had to be without him again, but she wasn't sure how to do this. He was so much better than she was at showing her he wanted her, at acting on it. She wanted to tell him how stupid he'd been, to hurt himself so badly for no reason, but she didn't know how to say it without it sounding like reproach.

He was given leave to miss class and attend physical therapy thrice weekly. Nadia lent him her notes to help him catch up. She didn't always have time in the afternoons after school because she had to head straight back to the shop, so some days she woke up earlier and got to school before it officially opened. Guzmán would wait for her there, a cup of tea he'd brought for her from home in his hand, and together they'd head to the library, where they'd sit across from each other at a table, Nadia explaining her notes as they went along. He couldn't write very well and had to type his notes on his laptop. It was a slow process, made slower by how he kept trying to play footsie with her, and Nadia watched him closely as his fingers moved across the keyboard. Every few minutes he'd flex his hand and shake out his wrist.

One morning he said to her, "You're always so serious when we study."

Nadia could tell Guzmán knew she was upset, but she didn't know if he could tell that it wasn't at him. Instead of answering, she reached across the table and took his hand. It was larger than hers, his fingers long, his nails cut short. The scarring over his knuckles had healed, but Nadia remembered the mess he'd made of his skin, how the brick had scrubbed through it almost to the bone underneath. Delicate scars showed across the back where the doctors had cut and made incisions for his operations. They stood up from his skin, red and thin. Nadia traced them with her forefinger, turned his hand over and traced the lines on his palm.

Guzmán stayed still as she studied his hand. His voice was soft when he said, "I'm okay. Look." He held his hand up and touched his thumb to his forefinger, his middle finger, his ring finger, his pinky, repeated the process in the other direction. "I just learned that this week. Genius, huh?" He gave her a grin.

"That's not funny," Nadia said.

Guzmán looked own, chastised. "It doesn't hurt," he said. "Honest."

Nadia reached for his hand again. "Can you promise me something?" she asked.

"What?"

"Promise me you won't do this anymore."

Guzmán gave a humorless laugh. "I didn't do anything. I should have bashed his skull in like he did to Marina and instead all I did was fuck up my hand. I can't even make a fist anymore."

Nadia curled his fingers into his palm and rubbed her thumb across his knuckles. Then, with just a second of thought, she brought her lips to the back of his hand and placed a soft kiss there. She nuzzled her nose against it, spread his palm against her cheek and held it there with her own hand covering his. Guzmán's eyes went wide as he looked at her. She rarely ever showed such tactile affection in public, didn't even like it when he brushed at the strands of hair at her temple.

"Promise me?" she said again. "Promise you won't hurt yourself just because you're angry."

"Nadia—" he said pleadingly.

"It scares me. This is just your hand, but what's next? What if you hurt yourself in a way that can't be fixed? What'll you leave for me? Promise me."

Guzmán looked at her for a long moment before answering her. His face was stony. Nadia knew how seriously he took promises, and that what she was asking of him wasn't as simple as just saying the words. But she needed this from him, needed him to know she cared, and that she wanted him to care, too, about himself as much as anyone else.

"I promise," he said finally.

"Can you still do this?" Nadia said, and he gave her a curious look. She hooked her pinky finger around his, then brought her thumb up. Guzmán's face broke into a grin, genuine this time, and not just meant to placate her, and he brought his own thumb up to touch hers.

The first time she found the courage to hold Guzmán's hand as they walked down a school hallway together, his grip was light. Nadia knew it was because he couldn't flex his hand any closer, but it was all right. She could hold on tight enough for the both of them.

88

Between studying for exams, working at the shop, earning extra cash by tutoring, and finishing her applications to college, Nadia didn't have much free time; but she tried her best to find time for just her and Guzmán alone. He liked inviting her over to his place, and on days when his parents weren't home Nadia would push him back onto his bed, climb over him, and kiss him to her heart's content. They didn't always have sex. Sometimes they just talked and kissed and pet each other, and Guzmán, even when he snuck his hands under her shirt or whispered something outrageous in her ear, never pushed her.

They were sprawled out together on his bed with the TV on mute. Guzmán lay with an arm behind his head, one leg bent at the knee. He was in his underwear, and his chest was bare. He'd put music on and had his eyes closed, but Nadia was looking around his room. It was a little messy, but not dirty. In her own room she had her bed piled up with pillows, and on her shelves were books she'd had since she was young, things her mother and May had read to her. She had three lamps that varied in brightness because she liked choosing which to use based on her mood, and her furniture was all wood, sturdy, heavy things her parents had brought over with them years ago from Palestine. But Guzmán's room just had a bed and a desk and chair in it. It'd surprised her the first time she'd seen it because it clashed so strongly with how she thought of him—fussy and overprotective. She'd expected to find something like a coin collection or model ships, something she could tease him about, but instead it looked like all he did in it was sleep. The only thing that told her it was his room were the boxes stacked up in a corner, all marked with Marina's name.

"You want it?" Guzmán asked, interrupting her thoughts.

"Hmm?"

He looked down. Without noticing, Nadia had been playing with the bracelet he wore. "Oh, sorry," she said, but he just shook his head. He sat up and took the bracelet off.

"Here," he said, and clasped it on her. It was warm with his heat, and lighter than she'd expected. He did this often, gifted her pretty things without her asking. In her room she had flowers he'd gotten her just the other day, and a copy of The Little Prince he'd found on a cart outside a bookstore, an edition from when it'd first been translated into Spanish. She wriggled her wrist and let his bracelet drop down her arm, then back down to her hand.

"Looks good on you," Guzmán said. He lay down again, pulled her by the waist so she was close to him, and started mouthing at her neck. Nadia smiled and scratched her nails through the hair at the back of his head, cradling him to her. He was letting his hair grow out agin.

"Guzmán," she said.

"Yeah?" he nuzzled closer to her.

"Why do you still have Marina's stuff in here?"

He stilled.

"It's been over a year," Nadia said quietly.

Guzmán shrugged out of their embrace. She caught sight of his face before he turned from her. He looked annoyed, but Nadia knew it was his default face for when he was distressed. He sat on the edge of the bed, his back to her. He did this every time she tried to talk to him about Marina; he ignored her and tried to change the subject, and if she wouldn't let him he'd point blank tell her to drop it. Nadia sat up, folded her legs underneath her. In front of her, Guzmán had his shoulders curled in on himself. "It's getting late," he said. "I can drive you home."

He was right. If she didn't leave soon she'd hear an earful from her father when she got home. But instead of moving off the bed Nadia inched closer to him. She first lay a hand against his back and let it rest there, then she pressed herself up against him, brought her arms around him, hugging him from the back, her legs folded on either side of him.

"Don't tell me to go," she said. She pressed a kiss to his shoulder.

Guzmán made no notice of her at first, but then he brought a hand up and held on to her arm. They stayed that way for a long time, quiet, unmoving, their breathing syncing up, until Guzmán said, "I'm not throwing all her shit away."

"Of course not," Nadia said. "That's not what I'm asking you. But maybe…" she let her words trail off. She wasn't sure exactly what she wanted, just knew that she missed Marina and wanted to talk to Guzmán about her.

She didn't think anyone knew how close she and Marina had been, and it wasn't until her sudden, brutal absence that Nadia realized how much a part of her life Mariana had become. She missed how playful Marina was, how gentle, how unafraid she was of other people and how that made it easy for her to reach out in friendship. Nadia even missed how selfish she was, the way she followed what she wanted without much regard to how it would affect someone else. She'd been so different from Nadia, with her anger at her parents, how unbeholden to them she felt, and how she'd always chosen herself, even when that had meant hurting people she cared about.

Nadia had never found it easy to make friends, but Marina had reached past her defenses with her kindness and her brashness, and it had changed her. How easily she fell in with Rebeca and Val, it was only because with Marina she'd seen that friendship didn't have to be based on similarities, that sharing a real closeness with someone didn't mean you had to share the same values. With Marina friendship had meant seeing someone for who they are and allowing them to be that person. For most of her life Nadia had felt that what she wanted for herself separated her from the people around her. That was what Lu hated so much about her, wasn't it? That being true to something she believed in was more important to her than being accepted? Lu confused the certainty with which she held on to her faith and what it asked of her for a pretense of moral superiority, and for the longest time Nadia had taken that reaction to her and internalized it. But with Marina she'd seen that any good relationship, anything real, could handle differences without turning sour or collapsing. She'd told Marina her recklessness made her scared she'd be lost like her sister, and Marina had told her that she needed to live a little. They hadn't met in the middle, exactly, but it had brought them closer.

Marina hadn't been her sister, her death couldn't mean the same thing to her as it did to Guzmán, but there had to be something they could share of her, something that could ease the pain they both felt. "…Maybe even just—just unpacking them?" Nadia said.

Guzmán stayed silent beneath her. "I could help you," she offered quietly. Her voice was very, very soft. She didn't know if he'd heard her.

Carefully, so much so that she didn't even jostle the bed, Nadia pulled herself from Guzmán and made her way over to one of Marina's boxes. Guzmán's boxes, really. She lifted one off the top of a pile and placed it on the floor. The flaps were creased, like the box had been opened and closed regularly. She opened it delicately and peered inside. It wasn't packed very well. The things in it looked like they'd been rifled through and then put back in without any thought. Nadia started pulling them out, one by one. She held each item in her hand, inspecting it closely, trying to place where it would have fit into Marina's life. She took a snow globe out. It had two little figures inside of it in ice skates holding hands, and across the base it read, 'Holding you in my heart.'

"Our grandmother gave that to her," came Guzmán's voice.

Nadia looked back at him. He'd been quiet the entire time she'd been unpacking the box. He was just watching her, one elbow on his knee, his jaw in his hand. His face was red and splotchy, but he hadn't been crying. "Turn it over," he said.

On the bottom was a little winding key. Nadia turned it, and a wistful little tune came out. "Back when we were little, my parents used to take us to visit our grandparents on my mother's side," Guzmán said. His voice was only just louder than the song from the snow globe. "They liked to travel a lot, so we never met them in the same place. And Marina was always confused because she thought they didn't have a home. Like, she thought the reason why we never stayed with them at their house was because they didn't have one." Guzmán swallowed and ran a hand through his short hair. Nadia could tell it was difficult for him to say any of this to her, but she didn't stop him.

"And then this one time, I remember we were visiting them in France, in Brittany or something, and we were leaving to come back home, and Marina started crying and wouldn't stop. She thought we were abandoning them, our grandparents. She was convinced we wouldn't be able to find them the next time we wanted to see them, and she didn't want to leave them, especially our grandmother. They were really close. And then a few weeks after we got back this came in the mail. Our grandma had it custom made."

Guzmán stood, came over and crouched down next to Nadia. He pointed at the smaller figure. "Look," he said. Nadia did, and saw that it had curly red hair. "Marina," she breathed.

"Yeah," Guzmán said. "And that's our grandmother." The other figure had grey curls tucked under a winter hat. "Marina actually had that scarf and coat the figure's wearing. They're in here somewhere, in one of these boxes. She never threw them out cause of this thing."

And they went on like that, Nadia pulling items out of the box and Guzmán telling her about them. A Strokes t-shirt, "She snuck out to see them once. Followed them for three tour stops before my dad went to get her"; tap shoes with ribbons as laces, "She liked ballet more, though"; a beautiful little jewelry case, but inside were just hair bands, "I gave that to her, she was always losing them and running out"; a trophy that read, 'Marina Nunier Osuna - First Place,' "She always won everything, there's a whole other box of her trophies somewhere here."

When the box was emptied and the floor around them covered with Marina's things, Nadia picked the snow globe up again. She stood up with it, walked around Guzmán's room. She stopped by his desk, then by his window, then finally stood before the shelf that ran behind his bed. She placed the snow globe there, turned it so that miniature Marina and her grandmother were facing toward the door. Nadia turned to Guzmán. "Help me," she said.

But Guzmán din't move. He just looked at her with grief and weariness on his face and weighing on his shoulders and arms, this time without any anger to hide it. Nadia went to him, bent down and reached for his hand. "Help me," she said again. She tugged on his arm. "Help me."

Together, silently, they walked around his room, finding places for Marina's things. Halfway through Guzmán pulled her into a hug, so that she had her back to his front. "Thank you," he said. He kissed her shoulder through the fabric of her shirt. A response to the earlier kiss she'd given him. "I love you."

A rush of feeling came over Nadia when he said it, and it mixed in with the longing she was feeling for Marina. Nadia turned in his arms and hid her face against him. They stood holding each other, and then they were kissing, and then they were sinking down to the floor together, where Guzmán let her rest her body against his.

The jewelry box with the hair ties was next to his leg. Nadia picked it up. "Can I have this?"

"It's yours." Guzmán kissed her forehead. "I can listen, too," he said.

Nadia took her time before she spoke. There was a mess of feeling inside her, and she wanted to step away from it, consider it from a distance and order them one by one. But it was hard to do when one flowed into the other, when some had the same shades and colorings.

"I just miss her," she said. That was the first thing, and it was simple. The next words came slowly, and it was almost like she was talking to herself, trying to figure out what it was she meant. "I feel like…she knew me in a way other people didn't…and she took that part of me with her. Or maybe it's that she changed me and now she's not here anymore, and I don't know what to do with it. I want to share things with her, but I can't. I want to ask her things, but I can't."

Nadia looked up to see Guzmán's reaction. If he looked uncomfortable or heartbroken, if from his face she could tell he couldn't take her talking about Marina this way, she would stop. But his gaze was gentle, and he waited for her to continue. Nadia took a deep breath. "I guess…I think maybe she was my best friend, and I didn't even realize it. I hadn't been so close to someone since my sister."

"Your sister?"

"Yeah. She was older than me. I told Marina about her."

"Did she—"

"No, no." Nadia's stomach swooped painfully even at the thought. "I—I don't know. She left us, my family I mean. And we don't know where she is now."

Guzmán tightened his arms around her and Nadia burrowed into his embrace. "Marina reminded me so much of her. She told me we were young, and we had to do everything to live our lives while we still could." Nadia's 'shes' were getting mixed up, and she didn't know if Guzmán could follow her, but he didn't interrupt her. "She wanted so much, and she wanted it without compromise. I didn't understand that back when she was with us."

"Is that what this is about?" Guzmán asked.

"This?"

"Your hijab," he said, "kissing me?"

Nadia shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe. Sometimes I think Marina was right, but sometimes I think she was just lonely. This…it's—" she cut herself off, shook her head. "I'm sorry I'm so difficult."

Guzmán touched her arm with the tips of his fingers, a caress and a gesture of reassurance. "No," he said. "Tell me what you were gonna say."

Nadia turned to face him again, and he was looking at her in that way he did, intense, focused, as if everything in him were filled up only with her. Nadia reached up and touched fingers to his chin. Sometimes it was hard for her to believe she could have him like this.

"…This, between you and me, I want it. This is something I want." It wasn't 'I love you,' but it was the closest she'd come to telling him what she already knew.

"Tell me more about your sister," Guzmán said, and Nadia did.


	2. Chapter 2

ii. "I would have liked to have been there for you, and to have done something." "What would you have done?" "I don't know. Talked. Given you a hug, at least."

With Omar gone, many of the responsibilities of running the Shanaa family shop fell to Nadia. Her father insisted it was only temporary, but Nadia knew that her parents had been counting on Omar to take over the shop after he graduated. Her mother spent her time cooking and cleaning, keeping touch with family members back in Palestine, and looking after her father, and her father spent his time trying to do more in the shop than he physically could, and then brooding when his body gave out. Nadia came upon him one day in the corridor, leaning against the wall, one hand on his cane and the other covering his eyes. She couldn't tell if he was crying, but she'd never seen him look so frail, even when he'd been in the hospital. She'd looked at him only for a moment, taking in his bent shoulders, the brown sweater he'd worn for years because he hated buying new clothes for himself, and had left as quietly as she could so he wouldn't know she'd seen him.

Nadia knew her parents both missed Omar, and that their missing him was warped and enlarged by how they already missed May. Her mother still cleaned his room, even though most of his clothes were gone and there was nothing in there to clean because he wasn't there to leave a mess. She heard her parents arguing sometimes in furtive whispers, would come upon them in the kitchen or in their small living room, and they'd immediately fall quiet, act as though she couldn't see the conflict between them clear as day. Her mother was angry that her father had kicked Omar out, and she wanted her husband to bring their son back. But her husband was too prideful, too convinced of his own word for that. Nadia never spoke up to say that she didn't think Omar wanted to come back anyway.

As she re-stocked shelves and took down orders from customers, Nadia wondered at the emptiness there was in her family now, without Omar sitting behind the counter of the shop, and without the light in his bedroom staying on past when they'd all gone to bed, and without his figure in his customary hoodie locking his bike by the lamppost just beyond the shop door. It had been a readjustment after May'd disappeared, too, first a panic that she was gone, then an understanding that she wasn't coming back, the despair that came with it; and finally a resignation about her absence. Customers would ask Nadia where Omar had gone, and she couldn't bring herself to tell them the lie her father had come up with, that he'd gone "back home." All she could do was shake her head with a smile and point them to an item they wanted.

Omar had always been quiet in the shop and in the house, not like how Nadia had seen him be when he was working at the bar or out with Ander. Ander and Rebeca both had pictures and videos of him on their IG accounts, and in them he was laughing, smiling, playing around with Rebeca's make up and wearing flowered, brightly patterned shirts. Away from the shop, away from their home, away from her and their parents, Omar was blooming. Seeing it, Nadia wondered at how thin the line was between being needed and taking on a burden, between inheritance and being tied down. It hadn't been quietness on his part. It had been a mutedness, a careful keeping of himself because he'd felt the need to protect himself from them.

Nadia hoped May had found the happiness Omar seemed to have found, and she wondered if her own future would come to the question her siblings had faced, whether to leave their parents and the life they'd envisioned for them, and choose a life away from their acceptance and love. She wondered if that's what Marina had been about to do, before the decision was taken from her. Nadia didn't think she'd choose like them, she didn't think she had the courage—she was too scared of being alone, and so much of her was made up of trying to make her parents proud, of living up to the ideal they had, the one she had, too, of the kind of daughter they could love—filial, devoted to her studies and a bright future, dependable—and finding her happiness and selfhood in their embrace. Without their family and home Omar was free, but without those same things, what could Nadia be?

At school, in addition to her full course of work, Nadia took on tutoring to pay for her university applications. She had to cut back on her extracurriculars because of her work at the shop, which would hurt her chances of getting into her first choices, but she kept this from her parents. She put some money aside, too, to save up for a present for Guzmán, something special for his birthday, the first he would have without Marina. In her morning classes she found herself yawning and had to blink down hard to keep her eyes open, and by her last class of the day she was so worn that she would sleep at the bus stop, and then sleep on the bus on the way back home. Guzmán teased her, called her Sleeping Beauty because when she spoke to him on the phone at night she always fell asleep. It'd be easier not to call at all and just fall straight asleep, but Nadia liked hearing him as she lay in her bed, her room dark and her sheets warm, his voice low and scratchy because he was sleepy, too.

One day Guzmán found her dozing off in the library. He woke her with a hand on her shoulder and Nadia started, blinking up at him. "You snore," he said, settling down across from her.

"I do not!"

"And you're crabby when you wake up from naps."

"I am not crabby," Nadia said irritably, and tried to stifle a yawn as elegantly as possible. "And I wasn't napping."

"Uh-huh." Guzmán reached over and brushed an eyelash off her cheek with his finger, waited a moment and then blew it away. "Why are you so tired all the time?" he asked.

"I'm helping out more at the shop," Nadia said simply.

"You're helping so much you're falling asleep at school?"

Nadia avoided looking at him. Guzmán would understand needing to help her family. "My father's still recovering. He can't do as much as he used to."

But he still asked, "What about Omar?"

"He…" Nadia didn't know how to tell him. It'd always been easier for her to listen to him about his family problems than to tell him about her own. His problems, no matter what they were, would seem normal, while if anything went wrong with her family it'd be because they were backwards, unenlightened.

"Hey," he said. He took her hand, rubbed his thumb over the back of it. "What's going on?"

"…My father kicked him out."

Guzmán didn't ask if her father had found out he was gay, or if they'd had a fight, or any other useless questions. "Where is he now?" he said.

At this Nadia looked at him and wondered if he'd be angry. She watched him closely. "He's staying with Ander. They took him in."

Guzmán's face hardened and he took a moment before he spoke, but otherwise he had no reaction to Ander's name. "Are you all right?"

Nadia couldn't really remember the night of Omar and her father's fight. She remembered kissing Guzmán, the thrill that had coursed through her when she'd realized she was going to do it; and she remembered the rush of affection for him that had come over her, followed quickly by something a little darker, a little more urgent, when he'd shifted away from her, startled and unsure. The pleasure of kissing him had stayed with her while walking back home with Omar. He'd been happy, too. But the darkness of their family shop she couldn't remember. What exactly had Omar and their father said? She couldn't remember why their father had been so angry in the first place, or how it had all escalated so quickly. She couldn't remember the look on his face or what her mother had done. What she remembered was hoping with each passing second that things wouldn't get worse, and then watching as they did. She remembered being unable to move. She thought maybe she'd cried, and maybe Omar had been crying, too, but she couldn't be sure. She remembered hoping even after the door had closed behind her brother that somehow her family could contain itself and not fall apart. She remembered being scared of her father, and this time resignation settling in before despair.

Nadia was well acquainted with shame—she couldn't think about May without guilt creeping up her gut and reminding her how she should have loved her better—but she'd never been ashamed of her father or her family before. It pained her to think of how her father had made her feel helpless, had made her feel afraid, scared her to think how when she went back to that night harsh words for him rose to her mouth, words she stopped up inside of her because she knew if she uttered them they could change who they were to each other in ways from which they would not recover. She didn't want to look too closely at it.

"Yeah," she said. "Yes."

Guzmán looked unconvinced, but he didn't press her. He linked their fingers together and asked, "Can I see you tonight?"

She had to call the neighborhood carpenter and ask him to come fix the awning above the store. She wasn't any closer to finishing the essay she was supposed to be working on, and she had a tutoring session that evening.

"I miss you," Guzmán said.

They'd barely seen each other over the last few weeks. She'd mostly caught glimpses of him as they passed each other in the hallway, or in the cafeteria between classes when she stopped by quickly to grab some food. It was in seeing him like this—at a distance and only in passing, the way she'd seen him in her first few weeks at Las Encinas—that Nadia realized how changed he was. The Guzmán she saw before her was so far and away from the one she'd first met. The intensity about him was still there. The way he moved as if he could own anything he wanted was still there, too. But the entourage he'd used to have with him was gone.

Nadia knew Guzmán hadn't spoken to Ander since the day Polo had first been taken away for questioning. She knew Lu's favorite new pastime was ignoring him in the most obvious ways—arranging parties and not inviting him, changing how they sat in every class they shared so that Guzmán was as far from her as possible. When Nadia had first met him, Guzmán had been like a nucleus, with friends and people who wanted to be his friends draping themselves over him, surrounding him wherever he went, moving as he moved, doing as he did, standing protected and exalted behind the lines he drew. He'd had the luxury of exclusivity, then, of choosing who he wanted by his side and looking down sneeringly at anyone he didn't. Back then Nadia had only had Samu. She'd since grown comfortable at Las Encinas, a place she'd fought to be. She had friends in Val, in Rebeca, in the peers she studied with. It was Guzmán, now, who only had Samu.

But what struck Nadia most wasn't simply that he was alone; it was that he didn't know how else to be. Nadia had seen an interaction between him and a lowerclassman just the week before. A younger student had approached him with condolences about Marina, and before she could get more than a few words out Guzmán had slammed his locker shut, told her to fuck off, and walked away. The disdain in his voice had been so clear he'd left the girl near tears. It'd made Nadia think about how he'd known Polo and Ander all his life, how even Lu he'd dated for years. He was someone who held on to people. Watching him away from her, Nadia had realized for the first time that he was lonely.

"Please?" Guzmán said.

He'd never believe it if she told him, but it was hard for her to say no to him. She didn't this time, though.

Guzmán refused to tell her where he was taking her, which was silly, because she knew the way to his house. When they got there Nadia let him lead her to his room, and after he closed the door behind him she pushed him up against it and put her arms around his neck. She smiled up at him before leaning in for a kiss, but he stopped her with his hands on her arms. He shook his head at her, a mischievous look on his face, kissed her nose, and pulled her arms from around him. Nadia raised her eyebrows in question, and Guzmán's smile grew wider. He placed his hands on each of her shoulders and turned her around to face his bed.

"Get in."

Nadia scoffed. "A little bossy today, aren't we?"

"You have to let me be the bossy one sometimes."

"I don't remember agreeing to that."

Guzmán kissed her on her neck, right behind her ear, then gave her lobe a gentle nip. His hands fell to her waist. "Come on, get in." He nudged her forward. Nadia rolled her eyes, but she climbed into his bed, a fond and exasperated smile on her face. He climbed in behind her. She waited for him to put his arm out for her, and then she settled against him in the crook of it. She turned her face up to him for a kiss, but he shook his head again. "Just sleep," he said. "I'll wake you up when it's time to go."

All Nadia could do was stare. She hadn't yet found words for how caring he was with her. When he checked in with her, asking her if she was ok; when she could return to him after having walked away without fear of his being resentful; when he did things like this, giving her what she needed because she was too stubborn to give it to herself. It gave her a confidence, made her feel like whatever she was facing, she wasn't in it alone. He knew her, her problems and her burdens all, and he didn't use it to hurt her. He knew her, and all he did with it was ask her to rest when she was tired. "What," he said, "you want me to sing to you? I have a terrible singing voice."

Nadia reached up and cradled his face with a hand. She rubbed her thumb against his cheek. She was so full of feeling for him in that moment. She gave him a tender kiss, and Guzmán made it longer and deeper. She sighed when they pulled apart, and Guzmán pressed his lips against her forehead. He rubbed her arm up and down until she relaxed fully into him. Her eyes drifted shut, and she fell asleep cuddled up close to him.

When Nadia woke Guzmán wasn't next to her. She stretched in his bed and looked around his room. He'd unpacked a few more of Marina's boxes. There were pictures of the two of them out around his room now. On his shelf, next to Marina's snow globe, was a workbook on learning Arabic and an Arabic-to-Spanish dictionary. She reached for the workbook, flipped through the pages. She ran her fingers over the familiar script and smiled at Guzmán's attempt to copy the Arabic alphabet. It was inelegant and near incomprehensible, but it left Nadia feeling delicate as a petal.

Outside, Guzmán was in the kitchen rooting around in the fridge. "You hungry?" he asked when he saw her. "We still have a bit of time before you have to go back."

Nadia rubbed her arms up and down. She was still a little drowsy, and she missed the warmth from his bed. "Mmmm, you don't have to make anything. We can order pizza or something."

"It's okay," he said. "I can't really cook, but I can make this."

"Where are your parents?" Nadia settled herself on a stool next to the kitchen island and leaned her elbows on the counter.

"Left for a few days."

"And you didn't throw a party?"

"Who would I invite?" There was no bitterness in his voice, but they fell quiet after that. Nadia wondered how long he'd had the house to himself, and how much longer his parents would be away. She wondered whether he'd invited anyone else over, maybe Samu, maybe even Val. She didn't like the thought of him alone in the evenings after school and alone in the mornings when he woke up.

Guzmán toasted some bread and cut it up into slices, then filled small bowls with honey, pistachios, a sliced apple, and marinated figs. He placed all this in front of her, sucked a bit of honey off the tip of his finger, then sat opposite her. "Thank you," Nadia said. She drizzled some honey over a slice of bread. They ate comfortably, and the conversation flowed between them easily. Guzmán got her a cold glass of water, and when he noticed her shiver as she drank it down, he stood up, pulled his sweatshirt off in one swoop, exposing his abs and his pants slung low on his hips before he could pull his t-shirt down, and handed it to her to wear. The whole production sent her into a fit of laughter.

"I can't believe you still do that," he said. "Nadia, you see me naked all the time."

"I just can't get over your blatant immodesty."

"You're cold!"

"You're a show-off!"

He didn't even deny it, just gave her a shit eating grin and came around to sit next to her. He faced her, an elbow on the counter, his head propped against his fist. His gaze was full of fondness as he looked at her. "I think it's cute you like my body," he said.

"Be quiet."

Guzmán took hold of the stool she was sitting on, turned it and dragged it closer to him so that her crossed legs were in between his spread ones. He leaned forward and kissed her sweetly. She could feel him smiling into it. Nadia placed her fingers under his chin to hold his face there close to hers, and she leaned her head first left, then right, giving him lovely, pouty little kisses.

They sat like that, close and facing each other, Nadia with his sweatshirt thrown over her shoulders, kissing and talking and taking each other in. Nadia told him the schools she was applying to—a safety, two national universities, and one overseas—and he told her he was thinking of taking a year off to travel.

"Where will you go?" Nadia asked him.

"I'm thinking east," Guzmán said. "Maybe start in Bosnia and Herzegovina, work my way up to Russia."

She wanted more of this for them, moments when they could each share of themselves with the other, joking, talking about a show they'd just started watching and how annoying it was to have Mr. Rodríguez for calculus and what they wanted for their futures, simply and without worrying about facing the disappointment of her parents or the malicious comments of some of their peers.

When her phone buzzed she thought it would be her father texting to ask where she was. She reached for it on the counter and swiped across the screen to answer him with a quick 'I'm on my way.' But it wasn't a text, and it wasn't her father. It was a group chat, and messages were popping up in quick succession down her bright screen. Rebeca, Samu, Omar, and Ander's icons appeared next to their names.

**Nadia my love** — from Rebecca — **Where are you? Haven't seen you in foreveeeeeerrrrrrr**

**close the shop already and come here. the dj is amazing** — this from Omar.

And then came a photo of the four of them, Rebecca in the middle, Samu to her left, and Omar and Ander to her right, Omar smooshing his face into Ander's cheek and Ander grinning into the camera.

**Come out we miss you! **— from Rebecca again.

All this happened in seconds. The photo came up and Nadia quickly swiped at her screen again, making it go dark. But Guzmán had already seen. Nadia looked at him, and his face had totally changed from how it'd been just a moment ago. He let go of her stool and leaned away from her.

"You speak to Ander?" he said. He sounded like he was accusing her of something.

"He's dating my brother. Omar lives with him, Guzmán."

"And you have time to spend with him, but I have to beg to see you?"

"No, I make time to be with you," Nadia said evenly. "Like tonight, like now. I put off work for this."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Guzmán said, "I didn't realize I was wasting your time. I'll get you back to your work." He stood and started clearing the counter.

"Don't be angry with me," Nadia said, but he ignored her. She watched his back as he emptied the remnants of their meal into the garbage, rinsed their plates and put them in the dishwasher.

"Guzmán," she said, "listen to me."

He turned to face her with his arms crossed over his chest.

"I—I think you should talk to Ander. I think he misses you. And I think you miss him, too."

"Fucking hell." Guzmán cut his eyes away from her. "I don't want to talk about this with you."

It'd be easier to drop it, and Nadia didn't want to fight with him. She wanted to go back to the sweetness they'd been sharing just a few minutes before, back to how Guzmán had had his hand on her thigh, and how he'd been smiling at her so that his gums showed, and how he'd tucked his head into her shoulder to laugh.

But the truth between him and Ander was that it was easier for Ander to make friends. Nadia had seen it. He was laid-back, fun loving and easy to like, and he didn't put himself apart from other people, didn't cordon himself off as if he were better than anyone. Christian or Guzmán, Carla or Rebeca, whoever it was, Ander could talk to them. It was part of how he'd won Omar over, with his casual charm. He had an ability that Guzmán simply didn't, which was that he was comfortable in any environment, could slip easily into different places and not stand out. Nadia saw a bit of Omar in him in that, and she wondered if he was able to do this because, like Omar, he'd had to hide parts of himself for so long.

She knew Ander missed Guzmán because when she saw him he asked after him, had even told her once to be good to him because he needed it, but Nadia also knew that Ander didn't have to worry for companionship. If Guzmán kept this up, if he held on to his anger and resentment, Ander would move on, and the chance for them to repair what they'd had would be lost. Nadia didn't want that for him. She didn't want Guzmán to lose something else. He thought Ander had betrayed him, and he thought he didn't need him. He thought he was punishing Ander with his estrangement, but it wasn't true. Ander wasn't the one spending most of his days alone, and pushing him away could never measure up to what Ander had done to him anyway. What was the end of a friendship to a dead sister? For Ander, Guzmán would become someone he used to know, but for Guzmán, Ander would be another name to add to the list of collateral after Marina's murder. Nadia would never tell Guzmán this because she didn't want him to be more hurt than he already was, but it was Ander who didn't need him.

"Ignoring it won't change anything," Nadia said.

"That's rich, coming from you."

"Excuse me?"

"Your dad kicks Omar out and you're fine with it? You're falling asleep in class and turning essays in late but everything's fine? I saw your face when you told me, Nadia. I know you. It's not fine, and you're not fine."

"I can handle it."

"Yeah? And Omar leaving doesn't make you think of May."

Nadia had to hold herself back from cursing at him. That was the thing about sharing yourself, wasn't it? It left you vulnerable. Nadia knew Guzmán wouldn't hurt her, but she also knew he had no problem telling her things she didn't want to hear.

She could do the same.

"This is not about me," she said. "This is about you being alone when there's no need for you to be. You're holding on to your anger like it's the only thing you have but it's not. You can have your friendship with Ander, Guzmán. You don't have to judge him. You can forgive him. For once you can just take what someone can give you without asking them to give you everything of themselves. Do you know what that does to people, when you're so uncompromising with them? Do you know how suffocating it is? Ander's not the one who killed Marina."

"No, he just knew who killed her and protected him. I asked him point blank if Polo killed Marina and he lied straight to my face. What am I supposed to do with that? Play video games with him while Marina rots in her grave?" Guzmán's voice broke here. He took a breath, curled his fingers around the edge of the counter behind him, and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. When he looked at Nadia again he said, "And this isn't about me. We're here, tonight, because your family has a death grip on you."

Nadia stood up from her seat so quickly the stool almost toppled over. "Don't you dare—!" she started. Her breath came quickly. She glared at Guzmán. "Things aren't as easy for everyone else as they are for you."

"You think it's easy to have a dead fucking sister?"

"I think it's easier for you to be angry than to admit you're lonely. And you don't know anything about my family. You don't know what my parents left behind to come here, you don't know what it was like before we had the shop, what it was like when May never came back. You don't know a thing. You don't know what it's like when Omar and my father fight."

"Then tell me."

Nadia let out a huff and rolled her eyes. "And what will you do? Talk to my father?"

"Do you want me to? Because I will, if you can't. I'll tell him it's not fair that so much should fall on you, and I'll tell him about us, and I'll tell him that I want you and a future with you."

It was like he'd doused her with cold water. The thought of her father hearing any of this—he'd do to her what he'd done to Omar, kick her out and tell her she didn't have a place in their family, didn't deserve to be a Shanaa. Nadia loved her father so much. She couldn't bear the thought of that love being betrayed, of it being answered with rejection.

Nadia pulled Guzmán's sweatshirt from over her shoulders and dropped it on the counter in front of her. She stayed silent and it stretched out between them, long and tense.

"I don't care what you do with your relationships. You don't want to talk to Ander? Fine. But don't threaten me with my family. Don't joke about it, don't even think about it." She leveled Guzmán with a steady stare. "I want to go home."

Guzmán's brow was drawn tight and his jaw was locked. Nadia could see him working it. He looked her up and down, his gaze cool, almost impersonal, returned her stare without blinking. Finally, he grabbed his keys from the counter behind him and walked straight past Nadia without a word, making his way to the front door. Nadia could see the anger in him from how long his strides were and how straight he held his back. They probably wouldn't talk for the entire ride to her house. Guzmán would open the car door for her without speaking to her, wait for her to buckle her seatbelt without looking at her, and drop her off two blocks away, safe from her parents' eyes, without saying goodbye, without touching her hand or kissing her goodnight.

But when he got to the door he stopped, so abruptly that Nadia almost ran into his back behind him. He turned to her, and they were then so close in the narrow hallway that she had to look up to see his face. It was changed again. There was still anger there, but there was softness, too. There was pain and there was longing.

"Is it a threat?" he said. His voice was low. He sounded like he was pleading. "Me saying I want a future with you?"

Nadia couldn't answer him. All of a sudden all she wanted was to kiss him. Guzmán reached down and took her hand, placed it against his cheek and held it there. He swallowed.

"Tell me why you want me to talk to Ander. Give me a reason."

How could she explain that seeing him so alone broke her heart?

"Don't say it's cause you want me to stop feeling shitty."

"But I do."

"Nadia—"

"And Ander isn't your enemy. You know how he's like? How easygoing he is, how you can trust him with secrets?"

Guzmán nodded.

"That's why it was so hard for him to tell you. It's the same thing, Guzmán. He can't judge people easy like you do. Polo was his friend, too, his friend who'd done something horrifying. He was stuck between you and him, and the whole time he was trying to get Polo to turn himself in. He didn't want you to go after him, and that's exactly what happened."

"Would you have kept it from me?" By now Guzmán's eyes were ringed red.

"You know I'm not soft like he is. I would have just gone straight to the police. But Polo probably only told him because he knew he could make him stay quiet. People don't trust me like that." Nadia paused. "Only you do."

Guzmán took a deep breath and leaned his forehead against Nadia's. He kissed her the way he did when he was feeling anxious, quick and intense, a kiss to comfort himself, and Nadia let him. She held him by the back of his neck.

"Okay," he said. "Okay, how about this? I'll speak to Ander if you speak to your dad."

"Guzmán—"

"Not about us. Talk to him about Omar."

Nadia shook her head. It wasn't the same thing at all. The broken friendship between him and Ander involved only them. It involved one act of betrayal, one failure. But Nadia knew if she approached her father about Omar it would unravel the delicate and intricate ties that bound them together—talking about Omar would be talking about May, and talking about May would be talking about herself, and talking herself would mean revealing that maybe she'd changed in the ways he'd feared, and she was no longer the daughter he cherished.

"But you want to, don't you?" Guzmán said. "You think I don't know anything, but Nadia, I'm right next to you. I see you. I know what family means to you. I know you're not happy."

"But he was so angry that night," Nadia whispered. "And that's not all. He was…he was heartbroken. Because Omar didn't want the shop. Because Omar didn't want what he could give him."

"You told me family's meant to support you when you need them. Maybe this is him needing you."

Nadia thought of Omar, of how small he'd looked standing in the dark outside the shop that night, no bag and without even his bike. She thought of how he was living with someone else now, as if he were an orphan, as if he didn't have people who considered him their own. And what she felt right then with Guzmán holding her wasn't fear that the same would happen to her, but anger that it had happened at all.

"Will you do it?" Guzmán gave her another kiss, quick and firm, this time meant to reassure her. He rubbed his hands up and down her arms. "Don't be scared."

Nadia thought of how much she loved her father, and she thought of the other things she felt for him, things she didn't want to admit to herself because they made her feel like a bad daughter, one undeserving of her parents' love and protection. But with Guzmán asking her to be brave, with him right there for her to hold on to, Nadia could look at her father more closely. He was too controlling. He turned to punishment too easily. He thought his children had been disloyal to him when in fact he was the one who'd abandoned them. And Nadia was disappointed in him. She was ashamed of him and angry that he'd made her feel so. She was resentful that he could first be so cruel to Omar and then have the nerve to miss him, as if he weren't the reason Omar wasn't there for him to see. She was resentful that for so long the only thing she'd wanted was to make him proud, like she had to earn his love.

"Will you do it?" Guzmán asked again.

"I will."

88

Saturday mornings were hard for Nadia. She and her mother and father woke up even earlier for their morning prayers and headed down to the store to restock shelves and make sure all the pricing was correct. They opened earlier and closed later because of the weekend rush, people coming in for ingredients for family dinners and for groceries for the week ahead. Nadia was grateful for the store; it wasn't until they opened it that they'd been able to get a home that could fit them all, a home they owned, and had enough money left over each month to send back to both her parents' families. She remembered what it was like before they had it, back when her father worked at a factory across town. They'd been treading poverty, the five of them living in a two-bedroom apartment, her parents sleeping in one room, she and her siblings in the other. She and May and Omar had slept in one big bed, and Omar had been so tiny back then, smaller than her even though he was older, and they'd made him sleep in the middle. They'd been poor, but that time held some of Nadia's most precious memories, because her family had been intact.

This Saturday she woke up before her alarm, in that annoying in-between time when it was too late for her to be able to fall back asleep and get a good amount of rest before it went off, but too early for her to turn it off and get out of bed. She lay awake, her eyes only half-open and her mind hazy, and in this unguarded state the anxiousness that was usually easy for her to ignore came over her, pulsing at the tips of her fingers. She thought of how strange it was, that with Guzmán, with his pridefulness and his rage, she could feel so light and easy. All he ever asked of her was her time and her love, things she wanted to give to him anyway. He never made her feel like he saw all the weight lined along her back for her to carry and was watching to see if she would drop it and fall along with it. If she were wide awake the thought would never come to her, but in the semidarkness before dawn Nadia thought that she was tired of people expecting things of her. Omar expecting her to be the good sibling, strangers expecting her to be oppressed, Lu expecting her to be a hypocrite, her parents expecting her to fulfill what they didn't get from their other children. It was as if she had to answer for everyone else and also answer for herself. So often with people she felt like she was an idea first and not a person. More than the store, more than her schoolwork, it was this that exhausted her. It was so much work to push past the idea she would inevitably fail to live up to, so hard to work against it with only a hope that she'd be seen as she was. With Guzmán she could just be Nadia and it didn't signify anything else. She thought of what he would say if he felt as she did. Probably something vulgar and effective, like "get off my dick."

In the store Nadia's mother counted up the drawer and let her know that deliveries would be made near noon. Nadia would be alone in the shop for the day. Her parents were headed to the hospital for her father's monthly checkup, which would take half the day; then they would do their weekly visits around the neighborhood, thanking families who'd stopped by with condolences when her father had first fallen sick; and finally in the evening they'd attend the weekly meeting of neighborhood Muslim business owners. Her mother flipped the sign on the door from _cerrado_ to _abierto_ and let Nadia know she'd left something on the stove she could heat up for lunch. Before walking out Nadia's father kissed her on the forehead and smiled at her, his touch on her shoulder light and gentle.

Throughout the morning, Nadia helped customers find what they needed, bagged items, and returned change. It was during a lull that he came. Nadia was in the back of the store, unloading a box of eggplants onto a shelf when she heard the door open and the chimes jingle.

"I'll be right there!" she called out. She brushed her hands on her jeans as she stood and said, "Is there anything I can—"

But it wasn't a customer at all. It was Guzmán, hands in his pockets and a grin spread wide across his face.

"Hello," he said.

"Hello," Nadia said, and just stood there, grinning back at him. She was surprised to see him, but she also wasn't. She'd been missing him, behind unloading boxes and taking down orders for deliveries, the way she always did when she was away from him. It was like he'd felt her missing him and just from that he'd come to her.

It was midmorning by then, with sunlight streaming into the shop so that it hit Guzmán's hair and his shoulders. She thought he looked very handsome. A feeling bubbled up in her, warm and delicious, and Nadia thought,_ I love him_. It was ridiculous, she knew, that he could have this affect on her. One look at him and she was filled up with joy, giddy with it. One smile from him and she was satisfied. Here he was, in her family shop with his bright jacket and trainers, and she didn't feel he was out of place at all. They stood there, feet apart, just staring and smiling and taking each other in, Nadia feeling suddenly shy and wringing her hands together, until they both realized how long they'd been there and started giggling. A real customer opened the door behind Guzmán then, bumping him in the shoulder so that he almost tripped, and he and Nadia broke out in peals of laughter.

"Oh, I'm sorry," the customer said, bowing her head. It was Mrs. Fernández, who came in every weekend to load her cart up and try to haggle, even though it was a grocery and not the street market. She was old, a grandmother to six neighborhood children, so from her it was adorable.

"Am I interrupting?" she asked, looking Guzmán up and down. They hardly ever got customers who looked like him in the shop.

"No, no," Nadia said, waving her in and still smiling.

"Wait here," she mouthed silently at Guzmán. But he didn't. He followed as she took Mrs. Fernández's rickety little cart from her and lead her down the aisles, and whenever Mrs. Fernández pointed to something on a high shelf, he reached up, grabbed it, and put it in her cart. Nadia gazed at him wonderingly. They went around the store like that until Mrs. Fernández's cart was filled up, and after Nadia checked her out, Guzmán helped her out the door and waited the five minutes with her for her bus to come so he could lift the cart in after her.

Nadia stood at the door of the shop watching this, felt her heart beat a little faster as he ran back to her.

"Aren't you going to ask me what I'm doing here?" he asked, a little out of breath

"What are you doing here?" But she wasn't really asking, she didn't really care. She was just glad that he was there. She wanted to kiss him right then, but she knew she wouldn't, not when she was home and she still hadn't told her parents, not when anyone from the neighborhood could see them.

"I'm here to help."

"Help?"

Guzmán nodded. "Today, consider me a temporary employee of Shanaa Groceries." He grinned the way he did when he thought he had a brilliant idea, so that it took over his whole face and he looked like a little kid.

Nadia let out a laugh that came out as a _pffft_. "Sure," she shrugged, still laughing, "Why not?"

Guzmán leaned down, made to kiss her, but Nadia turned her head and placed a hand on his chest. He stopped. She looked to see if he was confused or upset, but he wasn't. His face was soft. He understood. But he looked at her with his lids lowered and his lips parted, the wanting naked on him, raw and honest in a way that made Nadia take a breath to steady herself.

Inside, Guzmán finished unloading the eggplants for her. He asked her to tell him what he could do and Nadia directed him. Throughout the day he made sure the stock was regularly replenished. When customers called in for orders over the phone, he filled the bags with their items, listened closely to Nadia's directions so he wouldn't get lost, and walked the groceries over. She tried not to laugh at him when he came back bewildered and a little offended by the customers who tried to tip him at the door. She had to cover her mouth to hide it, but he looked so cute when he was out of his element.

Guzmán had his charm turned up all day, welcoming customers in, flirting with all the grandmothers, crouching down and making faces at the children who were fussy and on the verge of tears so they wouldn't start crying. He decided the store should have music like they did at the supermarkets downtown, and he put on a playlist that had Nadia grinning because it had all her favorite songs to dance to. When a delivery of vegetables came in, he helped the driver unload the boxes and place them in the storage room. When it was time for her prayers throughout the day, instead of putting up a sign that said she'd be back in a few minutes, she left Guzmán behind the counter. He helped her with closing, helped her clean and restock and count down the drawer, and at the end of the day Nadia wasn't tired at all, but buoyed. Having Guzmán there reminded her what the store was, not just where her family worked, but where the neighbors came in and spoke to them, told them about their week, about their lives. Guzmán had been fascinated that she knew so much about each person who came in, and he'd started a game of pointing someone out at random and asking her about them.

After closing, they stood in the corridor that lead from the store and into her home. Nadia stood against a wall with her arms crossed over her chest, her head down to hide her smile. She was feeling shy again. Guzmán stood opposite her, a foot propped against the wall behind him. He wasn't hiding his smile at all. The lights in the store were all shut off, and so were the lights in the house, leaving them standing in shadow.

"Can I take you out tonight?" Guzmán asked. "We can go across the street, get a coffee."

Nadia shook her head. "I don't think that's a good idea." She'd spent the whole day with him, and it'd been like they were in some small world all their own. But soon her parents would be back, and in the coming days she knew they'd hear about the boy who'd spent all day at the store with her. She wasn't ready to say goodnight to Guzmán, though. She wanted to keep him close. She wanted to share more with him. "But I can bring you up," she said.

"Up?"

Wordlessly, Nadia turned and made her way into her home. She took the long way up. Guzmán followed her through their small living room, where he'd once kneeled in front of her parents, through their kitchen, up the stairs, and into her room. She turned on her favorite lamp, the one that set everything in a soft glow, and stood as Guzmán looked around. He looked at her book case, where she had boxes of her old journals and the copy of _The Little Prince_ he'd given her. He looked at her bed, piled high with quilts and pillows and stuffed animals she'd had since she was a kid. He looked at the photos on top of her dresser. They were pictures of her and Omar, her and May, her and her parents. There were pictures of her grandparents, too, and next to the dresser, a cork board with pictures she'd printed out of all the places she wanted to go—New York, Ramallah, Singapore, Cape Town.

"Is this May?" Guzmán asked. Nadia walked over to him, looked over his shoulder. He was looking at a picture of her and May when they were very little, before May had even gotten her first hijab. May was standing behind her and pulling the sides of Nadia's lips up to show her row of missing teeth. "Yeah," Nadia said.

He walked over to her vanity. She had flowers he'd gotten her a few days before there, and next to them, the hijab he'd gotten her. Nadia wrapped her arms around herself, holding herself. She felt vulnerable, like she'd exposed something of herself, but the feeling didn't scare her. She'd brought Guzmán to her room so he could see the desk she sat at when she thought of him, the bed she lay in when she spoke to him, and where she placed all the things from him she cherished to remind her of his care for her.

"I'm sorry," Guzmán said.

"Hmm?"

"About what I said the other night, about your family."

Nadia remembered how his words had cut into her.

"I didn't mean it. I was upset but I shouldn't have said it." He walked over to her. He didn't kiss her, but he brushed the backs of his fingers against her cheek. "Can I hug you?" he asked. Nadia nodded. Guzmán wrapped his arms around her and hugged her unselfishly, gathered her up close to him, his body warm and solid and inviting. He tucked his head into the crook of her shoulder.

"Marina and I had this thing we did," he said.

"Mmm."

"What do we say?" he said.

Nadia repeated after him. "What do we say?"

"Through the good times and the bad times and the times that are fucked up."

Nadia smiled against him. That was exactly the kind of mantra he and Marina would have.

They stood like that for a long time, until Nadia felt the tiredness of the day come to her, and she let herself sag against Guzmán. He just held her tighter. When they heard her parents coming in, their keys jangling in the front door, they pulled away from each other reluctantly. Guzmán climbed out of her open window, and when he landed safely on the ground Nadia threw his jacket down after him. He walked backwards, slowly like he didn't want to leave her, his eyes on her steady until he had to turn a corner. Nadia stayed looking out her window long after she could no longer see him.


	3. Chapter 3

iii. "I know this silence. It's the one that comes before you run away." "No, not this time." "Are you sure?" "I am."

It'd been months since their parents had last seen Omar, but Nadia saw him sometimes. She saw him sometimes on weekday mornings when she walked across campus to enter school, dropping Ander off. She saw him sometimes on the rare occasions when she was able to make it out to a club with Rebe and Samu and Valerio. She'd be surrounded on the dance floor by her friends while Omar and Ander were just off to the side of them, making out as much as they danced, making a world for themselves. And if they went to the club where Omar worked, she'd see him behind the bar in his button down shirt and black tie, taking orders and serving drinks, slipping tips in his back pocket as if the whole thing were second nature to him and not something he'd started just a few months before after being betrayed by his parents.

Whether she saw him from afar or was able to greet him with a hug and a kiss to his cheek, Nadia never really spoke to Omar. At school she'd wave to him before she had to run off to class, and when they met at clubs it was always too loud and crowded for any kind of conversation. It was strange, because when they'd lived together, shared a home, they'd never spoken much either, but now it seemed even the possibility of it was away from her. That's what they'd had when Omar had been just a door down from her, possibility. His proximity had meant that whatever gap lay between them didn't matter much because it was countered by how she knocked on his door each morning for him to come down to breakfast, and how in the evenings he would climb onto her bed as she studied at her desk, and how whenever she needed to ask him something she could just stop him with a hand to his arm as they passed each other in the storeroom behind the shop.

Now when they met a silence shadowed every wave and every smile between them, and Nadia understood how easy it would be for her and Omar to hiccup and stop at just this, meeting occasionally for a night out and never sharing with each other anything that was important to them. They hadn't had to share anything before. In the parable of the blind men and the elephant, Nadia and Omar would touch different places but know they were touching the same thing. The closeness that came from their siblinghood gave them a common language outside of Arabic or Spanish or English, one that gave them a name for what they both held in their hands. They'd experienced together what it meant to be a Shanaa, and even if it had meant different things for them each, it had given them a bond that tied them to one another in a way they were tied to no one else. Nadia knew what it meant to stop saying her older sister's name aloud; Omar knew too. Nadia knew what it was to always be working toward the expectation her parents held for her, the burden it was, and how it felt to fall short of it; Omar knew it too. She knew how to switch from Spanish to Arabic without thought, how to be Palestinian and Spanish at once, how to be Muslim enough to please her parents but not so much as to draw the kind of attention that would get her hurt, how to be one thing around her school peers and another around her parents and those who frequented the Shanaa family shop; she knew how to be poor, how to be working class, how to be from the wrong neighborhood; all this Omar knew, too. These had always been unspoken between them. She hadn't realized that being these things, being who she was, was one and the same as being Omar's sister. But now what was left unsaid caused distance, not attachment, and Nadia saw that with enough time they'd no longer be siblings, but strangers.

The last thing they'd shared was the night their father had kicked Omar out of their home and family. That night Nadia had witnessed something she'd thought to be impossible. Her brother had been abandoned by their family. Losing May had been devastating. She and Omar both had never recovered. But May had been the one to leave. She'd walked out on her own two feet without being told to. Afterwards Nadia had thought that all she had to do, all Omar had to do, was do what May hadn't—follow her father's rules, put up with his demands and restrictions. That would be enough for them to be loved and safe. But when she saw her father strike Omar, and when she heard him yell at him to leave, Nadia found herself immobile and mute, unable to stop the tear that was widening before her. In that moment she had felt exactly what she was—just a girl very much defined by her family, without much power and without many places to turn should she lose them—and she'd seen that everything she worked for, the academic achievements, the filial piety, the strictness with which she carried herself, was so she'd never have to face that that was all she was.

After May she and Omar were given an inheritance, each for them to bear differently—Omar to be the man of the house, who would receive and continue all their father had worked for, Nadia to stand in place of the void May left behind, fill it up so that it didn't ring as an accusation of what her parents had done wrong, so that it couldn't be seen as a failure. She'd lost bits of herself that way. She'd always been cautious, even as a child, but she'd been mischievous, too, quick to laugh and a little bossy because she'd always been smarter than anyone thought someone her age could be. She tamped those things about herself down afterwards. Cautiousness turned to reserve, and she applied her wit to a resolute pursuit of her studies. Omar had changed, too. He became secretive, furtive and resentful, and he'd somehow found a way to show his resentment without saying a word.

Nadia wondered now what part of herself she'd lose with Omar gone, what she'd change about herself so that she wouldn't end up cast out like him. She tried to think what more she could give up, but there were only two things. Guzmán with the warmth he sparked in her, and the future she hoped for herself. It did something to her, made her chest feel like some crumpled up, ashen thing, to think of herself without what she felt for Guzmán and without the future she'd been working so hard for. She didn't think of how the one, Guzmán, didn't map perfectly with the other, a future of study and work, free from her family but still beloved by them; she just felt that they both were in her, both sustained her, and hoped somehow that she could have them, though it seemed greedy to want so much. Alone in her room, alone behind the counter at the shop, alone at the dinner table with her parents, Nadia met her loneliness and sat with the irony of it, that losing Omar was something she couldn't share with him. It was the first thing she'd have to go through without him by her side. Sometimes she wondered if May would be able to recognize her if she ever came back, she'd changed so much. All those years Omar had watched her change, just as she'd watched him. Now, with the ways she'd have to change again to survive, to hold on to what was left of their family, maybe he'd be the one who wouldn't recognize her.

Since promising Guzmán she'd speak to him, there'd been a palpable tension between Nadia and her father. He never asked Nadia how Omar was doing, but he did ask her to meet with him. The first few times Nadia agreed, bringing Omar a coat, bringing him shoes. But when one day her father gave her an envelope thick with cash from the register from that day's sales, she refused. What was she, to ferry this aborted care from father to son, when her father refused to do what was actually needed of him, to apologize, put aside his pride and admit his mistake? That day Nadia said to her father, "I'm sorry, Babba, I can't. Please." This was how they spoke to one another now, skirting around the new wound opened up at the center of their family, for fear that if they touched it they'd feel a pain that couldn't be abated. And she still didn't know how to say no to him.

What she'd wanted to say was, "Omar doesn't need your money because he makes his own." He'd always been able to, first with selling hash and dope, now with working at the bar. She'd wanted to say, "Why send him money when you won't let him live here? Why give this to him when you know we need it to send to family back home?" She wanted to point out that he wasn't being generous at all, was just flaunting his pride. But Nadia stopped the words up in her throat.

She was angry with her father, and she wanted him to know it without her having to state it. She wanted him to be the father he'd been to her when she was five and had fallen and scraped her knees and palms. He'd rushed to her, scooped her up in his arms and patted her back to stop her tears, used his nickname for her and apologized to her with, "I'm sorry, Didi," even though her fall hadn't been his fault at all. He'd put ointment on her scrapes, cupping her knees and her hands in his, and then smoothed dinosaur bandaids against them. When had he lost that ability? When had he become this person who alienated his children and even upset his wife?

Watching him as he walked around the store and their home with his cane, as he leaned on her mother for support but tried not to because he hated so much to need help, Nadia realized she was resentful. She felt late. This was the resentment Omar had felt after May had left. It was the resentment he'd felt every day knowing he was gay and their father would turn away from him for it. He'd been angry, and all Nadia had felt was sadness and guilt at losing her sister, all while being oblivious to Omar. Why did it take her so long to come to what Omar had felt immediately? It was another way she'd changed after May. She'd learned how to place her own feelings aside, how to make it so her countenance and her actions and even her desires weren't a direct reflection of them. And so with no argument, with no questioning, she'd started saying "Yes, Babba," in a tone that held no inflection and betrayed nothing of her weariness. She'd said it as if it were her own name. Omar'd said it, too, but it sounded different from him. In his mouth the words had been strained. Now she said "Yes, Babba" to keep herself from telling her father she was disappointed in him. The words felt rotten in her mouth, and she wondered if she'd started saying them all those years ago because she'd wanted to avoid conflict, or if obedience was the only way she knew to show her father she loved him.

One afternoon, a few hours before closing, Nadia sat behind the counter of her family shop. The store had been quiet for a while, and though she had shelving and rearranging to do, she sat with her legs crossed, elbow on the counter, head propped in her hand, a textbook and notebook open before her but ignored as she stared out the window. She felt listless and didn't really see anything in front of her, not the passerby outside, or the café on the opposite corner. Her mind was upstairs in her room. There, on her desk, beside the last flowers Guzmán had given her, lay the first response to one of the universities she'd applied to. The package was thick with acceptance—a scholarship that would cover her tuition and boarding, information about applying for loans and working on campus to cover the rest of her fees. But Nadia didn't feel the elation she'd expected. Instead she felt a kind of fatigue, as if it were just another task she had to handle. She'd had the letter for a week already, and she still hadn't told anyone the news, not her mother or Rebe or any of her professors, not even Guzmán.

She heard her father before she saw him and she fixed herself appropriately, sat up straighter and focused her attention on the book in front of her. When he reached her he placed a stack of three aluminum containers on the counter. "Can you bring this to him?" he asked.

"To Omar?" Nadia said, not looking up from the counter. She knew who he meant, but she wanted to say Omar's name out loud, make her father acknowledge, even if it was in this small way, what it was he was doing.

He nodded. "Your mother made it. Food. So he'll eat."

Every time he did this, approached her and tried in some inarticulate way to address his son's absence, Nadia could sense him trying to decipher from her face what he wanted to know. He looked at her closely, like when he was expecting to see the signs that would prove Las Encinas had changed her in the ways he was afraid, and etched in the harsh line between his brows Nadia could see what he was wondering—where Omar was and was he healthy and did he miss his family like he was missed and did he want to come home. But what she couldn't see stood out more. There was no change in him. Her father missed Omar, but not enough to listen to him. He missed Omar, but not enough to keep from flying into a rage when he heard what he already suspected was true, that Omar was living with his boyfriend, under the roof of the woman who'd outed him. He missed Omar, but not enough not to ask him to compromise himself, not enough not to ask him to accept a life planned out for him he didn't want. Nadia wanted to ask her father if what he really missed was his son, or if it was what having a son usually meant, someone to carry on a name, someone to take the ideals he had and hold them upright.

"Babba," Nadia said instead, "He doesn't need you to send him food. He's eating fine."

"All the same," her father said.

"And the store?"

"We'll close early," he said. "You leave now, flip the sign and I'll count down the drawer." It was only just after 5 p.m. They still had three hours until closing.

Nadia sighed. "I can't just go to Omar. He has a life of his own. He could be busy, he could be at work."

"Work?" her father said. "Where does he work? What can a boy his age do? He should be studying."

"Babba," Nadia said.

Her father shook his head and waved a dismissive hand. "Just call him," he said. "Call him now."

Nadia jut her chin out stubbornly, but after a moment, her voice resigned, she said, "Yes, Babba." She sent Omar a text.

**Mama made food. Babba wants me to bring it to you. **

She sat looking down at the floor, her hands holding her phone in her lap as her father stood looking at her, the counter between them. One minute passed, then another, before Omar's answer came.

**whatever**

"He says all right," Nadia said. Her father nodded.

Wordlessly, her father went to the hallway that connected the store to their home and stepped back in with her jacket. "The sun's going down," he said, handing it to her. "Wear this so you don't get cold."

Nadia gave him her thanks quietly. She let her father help her into her jacket though she didn't need the help, first one arm, then the other. She took the containers of food and without another word stepped out into the cool evening air. If she looked over her shoulder she'd see her father watching her, but she just lowered her head, one hand in her pocket to keep it warm, and made her way up the slight hill away from the store. When it was no longer in sight, Nadia pulled out her phone to text Omar.

**Meet at Jardín Verde?** It was the park their parents had taken them to for walks and birthdays when they were younger, her and Omar and May.

**nah** — Omar's response came — **just come here**

**Here where? Ander's? How? That's across town.**

**get a car i'll pay**

Nadia sighed at his answer before walking to a busy intersection nearby where she knew she could hail a cab.

The ride over took about 20 minutes. She'd never been to Ander's before, but Nadia was familiar with the neighborhood. It was where Guzmán lived now. After his father had been jailed and lost all the money from his construction company, he and his family had moved just a few blocks over from Ander, using the money they still had from his mother's side of the family. In those days Guzmán hadn't been speaking to her because of the deal he'd made with her father, but Nadia had overheard Lu consoling him, telling him it'd be good for his family to be living close to longtime friends. No one had known about Polo's involvement in Marina's murder yet, and Guzmán and Ander had still been the best of friends.

In the backseat of the cab Nadia watched her surroundings morph as the driver took her from one neighborhood to another. The low buildings and cobbled sidewalks of her own quiet neighborhood, mixed commercial and residential, gave way to the edge of downtown, where there were tall apartment complexes crammed with tenants. Downtown itself was full of shops and restaurants lit up against the darkening sky, bars like the one where Omar worked loud with music that spilled out onto the streets as friends and strangers and lovers draped over one another. They passed Jardín Verde,the park where she'd suggested she and Omar meet. She remembered playing there with May and Omar, back when her family had been her entire world. There'd been a whole summer, right after May had gotten her first hijab and before Nadia had gotten her own, that they'd spent running around the park blowing bubbles from a concoction they'd made themselves and spraying water guns at each other. One day May had taken a sheet from their bed, split it down the middle, and tied the sections around her and Omar's necks, then lay on the grass so that she could pull first Omar, then her up onto her feet so that they could each pretend they were Superman. They'd all three gotten in trouble for ruining a perfectly good sheet and for making their clothes filthy with grass stains and dirt, but that weekend their father had taken them to the park so he could lift them up, raise them on his long legs so that they could fly even higher. Nadia shifted in her seat and craned her neck to keep the park in view for as long as she could, but it slipped past anyway.

When the cab pulled up to Ander's house Omar was already waiting outside. He hadn't bothered to put on a jacket, so he was hugging himself, shivering in the driveway in his t-shirt. He gave Nadia a hug and a kiss even before she was able to climb out the back seat, then handed cash over to the driver and ushered her inside. Ander's home was smaller on the inside than it looked from the outside, but still larger than the Shanaa home. It had an open floor plan that allowed Nadia to see the kitchen, dining, and living rooms all at once. At the kitchen table sat Principal Muñoz, wearing glasses, loose pants, and a long robe. She had a band around her head holding her hair back from her face. On a couch in front of a television sat Ander. He had a bowl of snacks with him, and it looked like Omar had been sitting next to him, sharing it. He craned his neck over his shoulder when Nadia walked in behind Omar, lifted a hand to her in greeting. From her seat Principal Muñoz looked up from her laptop and lowered her glasses down the bridge of her nose. "Nadia!" she said, sounding surprised. "I didn't know you were coming over. Are you here to see Omar?"

"Uh, yes," said Nadia. She glanced quickly at Omar, tightened her hands on the handle of the containers she'd brought for him. She'd seen Principal Muñoz just earlier that day, in the halls at school, but the last time she'd actually spoken to her was when she'd been in her office, asking her not to expel Guzmán. It was strange to see her in her own home, with cabinets and a stove behind her. The domestication threw Nadia off. She looked older, somehow, her skin more fragile. Nadia realized she wasn't wearing makeup. She didn't know where to look, and she couldn't believe Omar was standing next to her in socks and sandals. "I won't be long," she said, "I just came to drop this off." She gestured at the containers.

Principal Muñoz stood and made her way to the counter. She picked up an electric kettle, ran some water into it from the tap. "You're welcome to stay as long as you like," she said. She held the kettle up for Nadia to see. "Would you like some tea? I'm just finishing up some correspondence here, but I can clear the table for you and Omar to sit, if you like."

"Oh, please don't," Nadia said, holding up a hand. Then she pressed her lips together when she realized she'd refused too strongly and too quickly. "I mean, no thank you. You don't need to trouble yourself."

Omar looked from Principal Muñoz to Nadia, his eyebrows raised. Nadia shook her head subtly at him. "Okay then," he said. "We can just talk upstairs." He took her by the arm and led her to a flight of steps, but before they reached it Ander called out. "Ah, wait, wait," he said.

Nadia turned to see him scramble off the couch. He stood and pulled his sweatshirt off as he came towards her and Omar. "It's cold up there," he said, and handed it over.

Omar grinned, took the sweatshirt and slipped it on. "Being chivalrous, huh?" he said, and Ander had a grin just as wide for him.

"If you aren't careful you'll catch a cold again, stupid."

It startled a laugh out of Nadia to hear him call Omar that. He turned to her. "A whole week he was moaning and groaning about a stuffed nose, and now he's running around with this flimsy shit on," he said. "Has he always been like this?" Nadia shrugged, still smiling, and Ander leaned in, put an arm around her in a hug. She shrank away from him at first, surprised at how easily intimate he was, but then relaxed and returned it.

A little way up the stairs, when Nadia figured she wouldn't be overheard, she asked Omar, "Is this really all right? I don't want to intrude."

"How can you intrude?" Omar said, turning to look at her over his shoulder. "I live here. I invited you over. Therefore you're a guest, no intrusion possible."

At first Nadia thought he was leading her to the attic, but when they arrived on the landing she found that they seemed to be in a whole separate apartment. It was small, but it was private. Omar saw her look of surprise.

"The master bedroom's actually downstairs," he said. "So Ander and I pretty much have this to ourselves."

Nadia looked around her. It was the uppermost part of the house, and so the ceiling sloped with the angle of the roof. A large bed took one side of the room, and on the other, a sitting area with a rug and an oversized chair. There was a closet, too, and in it she recognized some of Omar's clothes on hangers and cast away on the floor. In a corner, a pile of his and Anders shoes were mixed up together, and in the space between the bed and the chair was a desk that held a laptop, speakers, a turntable, and large headphones.

"Got that second-hand," Omar said.

"Are you going to be a DJ?" asked Nadia, and Omar shrugged.

"Sit down," he said. He went over to a window, opened it, and pulled a cigarette from a pack he had in his back pocket. While he lit it Nadia placed the containers she'd brought on the table next to the laptop and leaned against the arm of the large chair.

"So Ander's the one who nags, huh?" she said.

Omar smiled crookedly. "Nah. I am, actually." He blew a ring of smoke out the window and turned to face Nadia. "Why were you being so awkward down there? 'Oh, no thank you.'" The last part he said in the imitation of a prim tone.

Nadia rolled her eyes. "She may be your boyfriend's mom but she's still my principal."

"So what were you gonna do? Call her 'Principal Muñoz'?"

"What am I supposed to call her?"

"Azucena," Omar said, "Like a normal person."

Nadia made a face. "I'll pass, thanks."

"Those from Mama?" Omar asked, gesturing at the containers.

"From them both."

A silence settled between them, and Nadia took the time to study Omar. He took drags from his cigarette steadily, looking out the window, and he still had a shadow of his smile from earlier on his face. He looked relaxed in a way she'd rarely seen him at home.

"Are you comfortable here?" Nadia asked. "Are you ok?"

Omar shrugged. "Better than being out on the street."

His tone was light, and Nadia could tell he was being ironic, but his words made her lower her head.

"It's good that you have Ander," she said. Her voice was low. "Muñoz, too." Nadia picked at the nail of her forefinger with her thumb, and then asked, "Is it better here? I mean, would you rather be here?"

Omar paused before he answered her. "What are you asking?" he said.

"I—" Nadia started. She stopped herself, took a breath and let it out, started over. "Do you remember when we were kids? How people thought we were twins?"

Omar reached up and smoothed one of his eyebrows down with a finger. "Of course," he said. They'd both inherited their father's brows, big and thick and bushy.

"Eyebrows twins," they said together.

"I used to be so jealous of May cause she got Mama's brows. Never needed tweezing."

Nadia's heart thudded in her chest. They'd never spoken of May before, but Omar had just said her name so easily, as if she weren't a secret their family kept. They'd spoken so little of her after her disappearance, had put a stop to mentioning her so quickly, that for Nadia it had been as if she alone knew that May was gone, she alone remembered and thought of her constantly. She thought of the first time she'd spoken of May to someone outside her family, that day at school when Marina had held her face in her hands and told her they were young and had their whole lives ahead of them; she thought of the last time she'd spoken of her, with Guzmán in his room, lying against his solid chest as he held her, his arms around her.

"We…" she started "…we weren't really there for each other after, were we?" She didn't have to say after what.

Omar looked at Nadia for a long moment and then looked away. "Being away from home is weird," he said. "But it also makes it easier to see things clearly, you know? We both kind of left each other after May."

"She was what held us together."

"No. …No, we all held each other together. Babba and Mama, too," Omar said, and Nadia remembered how close she'd felt to everyone in her family when she'd been very young. They'd been living in a small two-bedroom apartment in a poor neighborhood, the first apartment her mother and father had moved into with May after coming to Spain. Both she and Omar had been born in that apartment. She'd felt so close to each of her family members then that she hadn't been able to differentiate herself from them, had felt that she spilled into them, and they into her.

"But after she left," Omar said, "you just started being the perfect daughter, and I … I didn't know how to do that. I didn't want to do that."

Nadia pressed her lips together. "I didn't know what else to do," she said. "I just wanted to fix it. I wanted us to be happy."

Omar shook his head. "It's just, I can't be like you, you know? I can't be what someone else wants. I can only be myself. Being anything else is too hard."

Nadia felt gutted at his words but tried not to show it. Was this what Omar thought of her? That she was filled with someone else's dreams?

"I felt like you disappeared too," she said. Omar looked at her. "Everything was falling apart around us and you just stopped talking. And that made me think I had to be more. It's like May left and we just became a placeholder for you until you could leave us. Like, I could feel it. We were losing you little by little and the only way I knew to hold on was to be what Babba and Mama needed from me."

Omar didn't answer her. A silence fell between them, not strained, not comfortable, just filled with the oncoming night and thoughts they each kept to themselves, though they were being more honest with each other than they'd been in a long time.

"Did you tell her?" Nadia asked. "Before she left? Did you tell her you're gay?"

Omar nodded slowly.

"Oh, Omar."

He shrugged. "I always knew. I thought May was the safest to tell." He finished his cigarette, stumped it out on the sill and dropped the butt in an almost full astray, then lit another.

Nadia tried not to think what it was about her that made Omar feel like she was unsafe to trust with who he was. She thought of what it must have been like, to tell the one person in your family you trusted something so fundamental about yourself, and then to have that person disappear with your secret. "I'm sorry I wasn't better," she said. She didn't think Omar heard her at first, and so she said it again, raising her voice even though she kept her face turned down.

"I'm sorry."

Omar shrugged again. "I'm sorry either of us have to deal with any of this shit at all."

Nadia shifted in her seat. "I'm not asking you to come back," she said, "And I promise, I promise I won't again. But what will you do if Babba apologizes? If he asks for forgiveness?"

"Still trying to give everyone what they want?" Omar said wryly.

"No," Nadia said. "I just…I can't believe our family is this small. I can't believe this is all we can do for each other."

"Babba won't ever apologize."

"He misses you."

"Regret isn't the same thing as love."

Did Omar believe their father didn't love him? Nadia thought of the regret she felt towards May. Had May felt like this? Had she thought Nadia hadn't loved her, or loved her enough?

"Did you know May was pregnant?"

Omar looked at Nadia, shock on his face. "What?" he said. "Is that why she left?" He stubbed his cigarette out even though he wasn't even halfway done with it.

Nadia shook her head. "No. I don't know, maybe. But she told me about it." Here Nadia's voice fell, but tears didn't come to her eyes. She'd gone over the events so much in her own mind that they no longer made her want to cry. They just left her feeling hollow. "She asked me to go with her to a clinic for an abortion and I refused. I judged her. She needed me, and I refused her."

"Oh, Nadia," Omar said, and there was pity and sadness in his voice that Nadia didn't want to hear. It confirmed for her just how much shame she ought to feel. But she kept speaking anyway.

"I was so stupid. And I was scared and I hid behind supposed morals. I should have gone with her. I should have been there for her." Nadia made a fist against her thigh. "If I'd listened to her maybe she wouldn't have left. Or maybe even if she did leave she would have told us where she is."

"Nadia," Omar's voice was soft. "You were only fourteen."

"So? She was only seventeen. And you were fifteen. If she'd told you you would have gone with her."

"Maybe. But she didn't tell me. She told you."

Nadia closed her eyes tight and swallowed. "I wish I could go back."

Omar shoved off from his place by the window and came to sit next to Nadia. She shifted to make place for him and they sat shoulder to shoulder, so that she could feel the warmth from his body. Ander'd been right. It was chilly in their room.

"I don't think it would have changed anything, Nadia," Omar said. "She would have left anyway."

"You really think so?" Her voice was plaintive.

Omar nodded.

"Then I wish I could see her again, just once, to tell her I'm sorry. I want another chance to be good to her."

Omar placed his hand on Nadia's shoulder, left it there for a moment, then touched her chin to make her look at him.

"Remember last year, when you wanted to go to the year-end party?"

Nadia nodded.

"Remember how Babba didn't want you to go?"

Nadia remembered. Ander's mother had just outed Omar and their father had wanted to pull her out of Las Encinas altogether. Omar had gone against him, gotten straight up in their father's face and demanded he let her attend the school's year-end party so that she could say goodbye to her classmates.

"That was the first time I stood up to him," Omar said. "I was so angry. He always found fault with me, but you hadn't done anything, you'd done everything he wanted and he still wouldn't let you go. That's when I knew there wasn't any way to satisfy him."

"But you told him you'd had enough, and he let me go."

"Yeah. I don't think I could have told him, that night, how much I hated the store if I hadn't done that first. It was practice."

"Practice for what?" Nadia said. "All that happened is he kicked you out."

"Practice for standing up to him. Practice for finally saying what I wanted. He kicked me out but I'm glad to be away—"

"You can't mean that. Not really."

Omar looked at Nadia for a long moment. "You'll be glad when you leave, too."

Nadia was confused, she caught only a shadow of what he meant. "I'm not leaving," she said.

"No? Then why do you work so hard for that scholarship? Why do you want to go away to college so much?"

All Nadia could do was stare at him.

"I sold to do it, but it's the same thing."

"Studying and being first in my class is the same thing as selling cocaine?"

"I never sold anything that hard—"

"How noble of you."

"And yes, because the goal is the same."

"You were selling to pay for college?"

"No, you want that scholarship so you can escape."

"I—" Nadia wanted to protest, but she had no response. She was stricken. She sat rooted to the spot as the truth of Omar's words came to her. Whenever she'd thought of her future, she'd imagined heading to something, not of what would be left behind. She loved her parents so much, it was hard for her to reconcile the word 'escape' with what she felt for them. But if letters from the other universities she'd applied to came with the same response as the one she'd already received, Nadia would have a choice to make. She could leave this city, her parents and Omar, her friends and Guzmán. Or she could stay, remain near her parents, act as a balm for the other children they'd lost, give them of herself only what she knew they could accept.

"I'm not accusing you," Omar said. "I wanted to leave for the longest time, and I thought it was because I'm gay, but that's not it, that's not everything. Being here with Ander and Azucena…it's showed me how hard living with Babba was."

Something in Nadia turned away from Omar's words violently. She thought of what Guzmán had told her about his father snorting coke, and of how whenever she saw his mother she was always holding a glass of wine, no matter the time of day. She thought of Rebe's mother selling drugs, and Valerio's parents wanting nothing to do with him. "Don't all families have problems?" she asked. She was surprised at how desperate she sounded, at how sad.

Omar shook his head. "No. Not all families, not like ours."

Omar reached out for her again. His touch was gentle, and it reminded Nadia of how he'd taught her to ride a bike when they were younger, how patient he'd been with her and how he'd stood behind her to keep the bike steady when she first pushed the pedals forward.

"Not all parents are angry at their kids. Not all parents demand so much, like they want to be paid back for something." Omar shook his head. "Nadia, you don't even know. You don't even realize how fucked our family is, and you won't, you can't, until you get out. I used to think it was just us, because we're Muslim, because we're immigrants, but Ander's dad was the same, too. He wanted things for Ander that Ander didn't want for himself."

"Like you and Babba."

"Like me and Babba."

Nadia thought of the evenings she and Omar had spent in her room after the shop had closed, her at her small desk working on her school assignments and Omar on her bed with his legs crossed, scrolling through his phone. There'd been comfort there, warmth. But now with Omar's words she wondered if she hadn't been mistaken in her understanding of what had been between them. Not warmth, but the familiarity that grows between two people who are suffering together, who are hiding together, who are making themselves small together to avoid blows from the same source. The thought that the closeness between her and her brother came from that, and not from love, pierced through Nadia painfully. She felt suddenly bereft. It was close to how she felt when she thought of May. But now she was thinking of Omar living with Ander, and preferring that to living with her, and their father, and their mother. She was thinking of a version of herself that could want the same thing, that could want that kind of distance from her family.

"Don't you you miss us?" she asked. "Me and Mama, at least?"

Omar took a long time to answer. "Of course I do. I even miss Babba. It's...it's hard being away from you guys. I...I don't know how to say this, exactly, but living with Ander is weird sometimes. I had to ask Acuzena to buy halal meat. And Ander kind of freaked out the first time he saw me praying."

"You still pray?"

Nadia felt Omar soften beside her. "Of course."

"But you drink. And you don't go to mosque."

Omar shrugged. "I'm trying to figure it out. Faith isn't as clear-cut for some of us as it is for you."

"It's not clear-cut for me," Nadia said sharply. She looked away from Omar then, stood an made her way tot window, and another silence fell between them.

It was dark now, and Nadia could hardly see anything out the window, save for the light that shone out onto the back garden from downstairs. In the silence Nadia thought of what her life might be like in the coming year. Maybe she would no longer live in Madrid. Maybe she'd go even farther than Omar, not just a few kilometers, but an entire ocean away. If she got what she had been working so hard and so long for, she could choose New York and Columbia. Nadia didn't think of how an American Ivy League would help her with her dream of working for the UN. She thought about how she wouldn't have enough money to fly back and forth internationally for the summers or for holidays, and so if she left for New York it would mean years without seeing her family. She thought of what her days would be. No store to tend. No parents to please. New people who wouldn't know her as a charity case Muslim girl. Omar was right. She was trying to escape.

Nadia heard a knock on the door, and when she looked over her shoulder Ander was poking his head in. "You guys all right? You coming down soon?" he asked.

"We're ok," Omar said, just as Nadia said, "I'll be leaving soon."

They looked at each other, and simultaneous smiles broke out on their faces. In that moment the tension that had risen between them dissolved. That was the thing about being siblings. It gave you a line to let out that allowed for anger and annoyance and frustration, but could be pulled back in whenever needed. That's what a family was, wasn't it? People who allowed hurt, made a cushion to soften the blow, so that no matter what transpired you didn't have to be alone? And in that way you always had something to return to, a home?

But Nadia didn't say any of this to Omar. She watched Ander close the door and she said to her brother, "Can I tell you something?"

"Of course."

"I got my first acceptance letter."

"Nadia!" Omar exclaimed. He jumped up from his seat and went to her, pulled her into a hug. "Congratulations!"

Nadia grinned against his shoulder. "Thank you."

"Have you told Mama and Babba?"

Nadia shook her head. "Not yet."

"They'll be proud of you."

Nadia shrugged, didn't answer. She looked down at her hands, suddenly shy, and said, "I miss you, too, you know."

"I'm sorry for leaving," Omar said.

Nadia shook her head. "No," she said simply.

"Are you ok, you and Mama?" Omar asked.

"Yeah. Mama misses you a lot. She just…sits in your room sometimes. Like for hours."

"I remember she used to do that after May. Sit on her bed and not move."

"Yeah."

"And Babba?"

Nadia turned to look at Omar.

"You care how he is?"

Omar frowned. "It's complicated. I haven't totally figured out how to live without you guys yet."

"Without us?" Nadia said. "No, Omar. You have me."

His smile was faint, but real.

"Are you ok with the store?"

Nadia lied. "Yes."

Omar pointed his chin at the containers by Nadia's feet. The food was probably cold now. "What's in those, anyway?" he asked.

"Lamb tangine with rice, some kind of salad, and spiced pears." All Omar's favorites. Their mother had been cooking only food he loved since he'd been gone.

"Do you want to stay? Eat it with me?"

"No," Nadia said. "I should head back."

"I can call you a cab," Omar said.

"No," Nadia said. "I think I'll just walk."

"All the way back home?"

Nadia's shyness returned. "I was thinking of visiting Guzmán," she said.

"Oh," Omar said. "So you two are still a thing, then?"

Nadia smiled at her brother. "We're something."

"Come on, then," Omar said, "I'll walk you there."

Downstairs Nadia said goodnight to Ander and Principal Muñoz. Muñoz just nodded at her, but Ander gave her another hug.

Omar took her out by the deck, cut across the back garden to the sidewalk, and from there they made their way to Guzmán's, bumping shoulders, walking slowly so that they made their few minutes left together stretch out longer. Their conversation continued, but now they spoke of lighter things, of their boyfriends, of the afterparty Rebe wanted to throw once the school year ended. The whole way over, Nadia thought of her and her brother. Maybe they couldn't be what they had been before their father kicked Omar out. Maybe she couldn't fix that moment. But she didn't have to forsake all that Omar was to her, or all the inarticulate ways they made each other up. Maybe in addition to being his sister, she could be his friend.

By the time they got to the walkway up to his front door, Guzmán was already leaning against the frame, browsing through his phone. Nadia had texted him before she and Omar had headed out. He stood straight when he saw them, and in the light from his phone Nadia saw the smile that came to his face.

"Hey," Omar said, "Remember how Babba always made me chaperone you everywhere?"

Nadia raised her brow. "I remember you walking me two blocks and then leaving," she said archly, and Omar's laugh made his whole body shake.

"Come here," he said, and he pulled Nadia into a warm hug. They rocked from side to side and he squeezed her before her let her go.

"Omar?" Nadia said.

"Mmm?"

"Thank you."

Omar just shook his head and smiled.

At the door Guzmán drew Nadia to him by her waist and greeted her with a kiss. "Hi," he said, and it sent a thrill up her spine that she could hear in his voice his happiness in seeing her.

"Hi," she answered him. They'd said the simplest, most common of words, but she felt like they were speaking in a language they'd invented. She wouldn't be able to stay long, a few minutes at most, but she was glad to have his arm around her right then.

From their spot on the landing Guzmán raised his hand to Omar. Nadia turned just in time to see him nod, stuff his hands in his pockets, and turn to make his way back to his new home.

/

The girls' race ended and Nadia grabbed a towel and robe to dry herself off with before making her way over to Rebe, who was sprawled out by the large bay windows. She was blowing gum and playing a game on her phone. She never swam during class, told Nadia, "No way I'm getting my hair wet for freaking gym," and "Me, wear a one-piece? Waste of my abs," but she always had a doctor's note for their professor. As Nadia dried her hair Rebe told her about the party she was planning to celebrate the end of the school year.

"Don't you have to graduate in order to have something to celebrate?" Nadia asked.

"Not everyone can be as smart as you, darling," Rebe said, "The rest of us just have to console ourselves with alcohol, music, and dancing."

"You sound like Valerio," Nadia giggled.

"Surely not."

Nadia raised her eyebrows and gave Rebe a long look out the corner of her eye. Rebe held both her hands up in surrender. "Ok, I'll tone it down. I can't go around sounding that crackheaded."

Lu passed by then, sending them a dirty look, and Nadia had to cover her mouth with her laughter from the curse Rebe sent after her. Lu gave her the finger before flouncing off and Nadia shook her head. "Rebe, sometimes you two look like you're flirting," she said.

"Now you're just trying to hurt me," Rebe said, "Come on, Lu? Miss Wears a Tiara to School? Give me some credit, please. Say I flirt with La Marquesita Carla at least."

"Hmmm, I don't know," Nadia said. "I don't think your thing for Samu speaks so well for you."

Rebe scowled. "Never mention that again." She took her sunglasses from their perch in her hair and tucked them down the front of her shirt, tugging it down to show more of her cleavage. "But you are coming to my party, yes? Promise me."

"I'll try to make it," Nadia said.

At that moment he boys' race ended. Rebe nudged Nadia with an elbow and gestured towards the pool with a jut of her chin. Guzmán had won his race, just like Nadia had hers. He pulled his goggles and swimming cap off, dunked his head and sprayed water out his mouth, and Nadia and Rebe watched as he pulled himself out of the pool in one smooth, sure motion. Water flowed down his shoulders and chest and legs as he rose, and sunlight glinted off the necklace he wore. When he stood he carded a hand through his hair, which was growing out since he'd buzzed it short, and looked around him. His smile was big and immediate when he spotted Nadia.

"Not my type," Rebe said conspiratorially, "but I see it."

"Oh, be quiet," Nadia said with a huff, but all Rebe did was laugh.

Guzmán made his way over to them, said Rebe's name in greeting, and they completed some kind of complicated handshake Nadia usually associated with adolescent boys.

"You here to talk to my girl?"

"I thought she was my girl?" Guzmán said.

"Excuse me, this girl has name," Nadia protested, only half joking.

Rebe just winked at her and snapped her gum. She got up, slung her school jacket over an arm, and nudged Guzmán with the toe of her platform trainers. "Make sure to bring her to the party, eh?" she said. "Val's already got half the school coming, my place is gonna be crawling with fuckers I don't even know. I need people there I actually like." And she walked away without waiting for him to answer.

"I don't think I like you two being friends," Nadia said. "I feel like you're ganging up on me."

"Nah," Guzmán said. "She'd fight me before she took my side over yours in anything."

He settled down next to her, leaned back slightly so that he was resting on his hands. He hadn't bothered to dry himself. Water dripped from his hair. It clung to his brows, fell from his nose to his lips so that he had to press them together. It fell from his his eyelashes when he blinked, and droplets of it shone on his shoulders and arms and chest. He looked so comfortable in that moment, relaxed in a way that didn't betray the hours he still spent watching old videos of Marina dancing, family home videos of them both from their childhood. He'd never lost that confidence—sometimes arrogance—that was so much a part of him that he'd be almost unrecognizable without it, but for some time Nadia had seen a weariness in him. Restlessness and silences and pacing, and even more of an eagerness to fight. None of that was with him now.

She looked around them at their classmates, splashing water at each other in the pool and grouping together in gossiping cliques. She wanted Guzmán to be carefree like they were. She wished Marina were there with them then. She wished she and Guzmán could have had this the entire time she'd been at Las Encinas, the trust and easiness between them, the friendship, the tenderness. They'd wasted so much time. She wondered what Marina would make of them together, if she'd be able to tell that whatever differences lay between them, she and Guzmán were made up of the same stuff, and so it wasn't strange that they would be one another's confidantes, one another's solace. In the hallways at school they weren't overly demonstrative like some of the other couples, like he'd been when he was with Lu; but somehow it was still known that they were Nadia and Guzmán. She felt silly, but it made her giddy to think that that's what they were, a couple. It made her even fonder of him, somehow, to know they shared something between them that other people could see and name.

"Hey," she said.

Guzmán turned to her.

"Happy Birthday."

A grin broke out across his face, bright and wide and delighted. "What?" he asked.

"Happy Birthday," Nadia repeated, and, very quickly, she leaned in and pressed a light kiss against his cheek. Nadia hadn't thought it possible, but Guzmán smiled even wider.

"What is this?"

"Marina told me," Nadia said. Now when she said her name his face didn't shutter, he didn't fall quiet and moody.

"What'd she tell you?" he asked.

"About your secret birthday. How she'd pick a random day in the year to celebrate, just you two, since you don't know the actual day you were born."

Guzmán ducked his head. He seemed suddenly vulnerable, but his smile remained. "Yeah?" he said. "Did she tell you how it started?"

Nadia bit her lip, shook her head.

"We were 8, I think? I was being a little shit—"

"You?" Nadia interrupted, "No."

Guzmán laughed. "Hard to believe, right?"

"Go on, tell me what happened."

"Our parents used to throw birthday parties for us together, and I always hated it. That year they got a cake for the both of us, and it was lemon with white frosting, when I'd wanted a rainbow cake with sprinkles. So I threw it on the ground. It was this four-tier cake, with like ornaments and shit all over it, it made a total mess. My mother'd spent a fortune on it, and she threw a fit, she was so upset. But Marina didn't even get mad."

Guzmán stopped for a moment, and Nadia leaned in closer to him, gave him a smile.

"She just started a food fight," he continued. "And she pinned me down and wiped frosting all over my face."

Nadia could picture it, a baby Marina hurling cake at Guzmán.

"And then the next week she gave me a birthday of my own. She got the maid to make me a rainbow cake and she got me this toy car as a present. I think I still have it." Guzmán shrugged. "I miss how she did random shit like that."

"I do, too," Nadia said.

"So you're continuing the tradition?" Guzmán asked, and Nadia nodded.

His grin this time spread slow and Cheshire cat-like across his face. "What's my present?" he said. "I get you to myself for the whole day?"

"Calm down," Nadia said, barely suppressing her laugh.

"Cause that's what I want," he continued, totally ignoring her. "That's twenty-four hours, and this morning doesn't count, so I've got you until…" he looked around for the clock that hung on the opposite wall across the pool. "…11 a.m. tomorrow."

"Guzmán," Nadia said. She tried to make her tone stern, but she couldn't help the smile on her face. "You're the birthday boy, but I'm the one making the plans, ok?"

"All right," he said. His face softened, and in the way he held her gaze, in the way his lips slightly parted, Nadia could tell he wanted to kiss her. She wanted it, too, her heart was full with it. She wanted to reach over, smooth the cowlick in his hair, and pull him to her by his shoulders.

"What's the plan, then?" he said.

"What are you doing after this?"

"I have Calculus."

"Skip it."

Guzmán's brows drew together, and his smile was a little uncertain, a little curious, a little incredulous, a little excited.

"Why? Don't you have Foreign Policy after this?"

"I'm first in class. I can afford to miss it."

Now his smile was full blown, and he looked so pleased it was almost smug.

"You're skipping class for me?" he said. "I guess you really do like me, huh?"

Nadia threw her towel at him. "Just put on some clothes and meet me by the South entrance, okay?"

They were in his car just a few minutes later. Guzmán slipped on a pair of sunglasses, and Nadia put her backpack and a large bag she'd prepared the night before in the back, then climbed into the passenger seat beside him. She directed and he drove. He reached over to lace their fingers together, and Nadia smiled to herself that of the two of them, he was the romantic. She was excited for what she had planned and wanted Guzmán to be pleased with it. She'd rescheduled all her tutoring sessions so she would have the rest of the day with Guzmán, and she made him take the scenic route. Through the city, onto the speedway, and into the countryside, the road beneath them curved around hills and through small towns and villages. They turned the radio on low, spoke and laughed over the sound of it, but he didn't ask where they were going, just kissed the back of her hand every now and then, and let her guide him to their destination.

The drive took over two hours, but Guzmán was grinning the last half hour of it and Nadia could tell it was because he'd figured out where they were headed. Still, she made a whole production of it after he parked.

"Close your eyes!" she cried.

"Nadia, I can see it in front of me."

"I don't care, close your eyes."

"All right," he said, indulging her, and did.

Nadia got out of the car, went over to his side, opened his door, and took his hand to guide him out of it. Guzmán was laughing the entire time, but she didn't mind. She stood behind him and lifted her arms up, placed her hands over his eyes. She raised herself up on her tiptoes and whispered in his ear, "Are you ready?"

"Yes," Guzmán said, and Nadia let her hands fall away.

Before them was the sea.

It was overpowering in every way. It stretched out vast, dark and moving and seemingly endless, went on until all they could see was the sky. They could hear it, too, waves that weren't quite so gentle retreating and then rushing back up to meet the sand.

She'd wanted to give Guzmán something that approached what he made her feel for him, something that told him what she wasn't yet able to say.

"Happy Birthday," she said again.

Guzmán turned and looked at her with eyes that should have been laid on the sea. His back was turned to it now. He took her gently by the waist and pulled her close to him, his face full of wonder. "Thank you," he said. Nadia raised a hand up to his face, taking him in, trying not to be overcome with all the feeling she had for him. She smiled softly at him, caressed him, fingers against his neck and along his jaw, and then she kissed him.

Their hearts were pounding when they pulled apart. They held each other for a long while, Nadia cradling the back of Guzmán's head and reveling in how good it felt to hold him like this, to be held by him like this. They were reluctant to let each other go, but Nadia pulled out of their embrace to take out what she'd brought from the back of the car. "Come on," she said. She took Guzmán's hand and led him down onto the beach.

The day wasn't quite fine. The sun shone bright above them, but there was a slight chill in the air, even more so so near the sea, but they went right up to the shoreline anyway. They played in it, giggling and chasing each other, running in when the water pulled back and then running back out when it came rushing back in. They walked alongside it, swinging their held hands and talking. Guzmán crouched down, took Nadia's shoes and socks off her feet and rolled her pant legs up above her ankles, carried her shoes by his fingers as they walked. He anticipated it when Nadia tried to push him in. He dodged her hands and instead swooped her up in his arms and ran headlong towards the water while carrying her, made as if to throw her in. Nadia was laughing, she shrieked out his name and clung to him when he swung her. But he didn't let her go. He stood in the surf, getting his shoes and the cuff of his pants wet in the cold seawater, and twirled Nadia around while she looked at him, her hands around his shoulders.

There were just a few other people on the beach. Nadia found a spot away from anyone else and pulled a thick blanket out of her bag, which Guzmán helped her lay out. She took out a towel for Guzmán to dry his feet with, then took out the meal she'd packed for them—sandwiches, fruit and chips and chocolate, bottles of water and a Thermos full the fragrant tea her mother liked brewing on special occasions. She took a cupcake in a plastic container to keep from messing the frosting out, and one little birthday candle that made Guzmán grin when she stuck it in the frosting. They settled on the blanket, Guzmán with his knees drawn up and his arms around them, and Nadia with hers folded underneath her. Guzmán cupped his hands around the candle while Nadia lit it, then she curled a hand around the flame to keep it form blowing out and held the cupcake up.

"Make a wish," she said.

Guzmán didn't even pretend to think, just closed his eyes for a few seconds and blew the candle out with a huff. They ate the cupcake first, splitting it down the middle. Guzmán wiped a bit of the frosting from the corner of her mouth and sucked it off his thumb. Their conversation came easy, slipping from joking to earnestness to flirtation and back again with no censure. They spoke of school and music and anything else that came across their minds, and when Guzmán broke off pieces of his own sandwich and held it up to Nadia's lips, she leaned in, no thought and no hesitation, and took it from his fingers with her mouth.

"I'm sorry I couldn't do this over a weekend," she said. "I'd be too busy with the shop."

"No, I love this," Guzmán said.

"Next time I'll throw you a party."

"Nadia, seriously, this is perfect."

"Well, don't be too satisfied yet."

"There's more?"

Nadia smiled and reached for her bag. She tugged a prettily wrapped package from it and handed it to Guzmán. He took it from her, but then just held it and gazed at her, his mouth open in a soft smile. He looked disbelieving.

"Aren't you going to open it?" Nadia asked.

Guzmán looked at her for a moment longer, saying nothing. Then, with careful fingers, he tore the wrapping and pulled out his present. It was a leather traveling backpack, simply made and elegant, with a special compartment made just for holding a camera.

"It's for your year off, for when you go traveling," she said.

She'd had to save up to get it for him, putting away money from her tutoring and whatever change was leftover from the store, and dipping into just a bit of what she'd saved for her future university expenses. It had taken months, but she'd wanted to get him something useful he could take to remind him of her. She watched as Guzmán turned it over in his hands, admiring it first from one side, then another, unzipping it to look inside.

"Look," she scooched closer to him and started pointing out all the features. "You can put your passport in here, and a water bottle here, and—" Guzmán stopped her by closing a hand gently around her wrist. Nadia looked at him then and continued in a soft voice. "And this I thought was perfect for the camera Marina got you for your last birthday."

Guzmán was still gazing at her with the look he'd had on his face from before, like he was drunk on something and couldn't find words to speak.

"Do you like it?" Nadia asked.

Instead of answering he tugged her down closer to him and arched up towards her. It was a long, sweet kiss. It had each of them shifting to get closer to each other's warmth, and when they pulled apart Nadia was the one who felt drunk. She cuddled up to him, leaning her head against his shoulder, and Guzmán reached back for the other blanket she'd brought, wrapped it around them both to huddle under. From their spot they could feel the faintest mist from the sea against their faces, but they didn't mind.

Close to him like this, with his arm around her, Nadia felt safe. If she closed her eyes, if she let herself, she could almost fall asleep. Part of her wanted them to lay down so she could rest her head against his chest, even though soon the sun would be setting and their day together would end, and they'd have to begin their long drive back.

"Hey," Guzmán's voice came soft.

"Mmmm," Nadia said.

"Thank you for this. I really love it."

But Nadia heard the question in his voice.

"But what?" she said.

"But..." and here he pressed a kiss against her forehead. "… Why does this feel like you're saying goodbye?"

Nadia's heart beat suddenly faster, but she said nothing. Of course he'd suspect, of course he would ask after her, when right then they were supposed to be celebrating him.

"Are you pulling away again?" he said. There was no accusation in his voice, no weariness either, just gentleness, but Nadia still felt the pain of his words. "Are you gonna stop talking to me? Say we can't be together?"

"I never stopped talking to you. That was you."

Guzmán nodded, worked his jaw, and his face became serious. "Did you speak to your father? Did he say something?"

Nadia took a moment before answering, then shook her head. "No."

"Then what is this?"

"I just wanted to wish you a happy birthday."

Guzmán shifted away from her, but only so he could face her. He took both her hands in his, held them for a moment that stretched out, caressed them, his thumbs making small circles at the center of her palms, then kissed them. "I know you," he said, "Skipping class? Coming all the way out here and risking getting home late? Nadia, just tell me what's going on."

Visiting Omar, seeing him with Ander and his mother, had made something clear to her. She had to speak to her father, and not just because of the promise she'd made Guzmán, but because she was her father's daughter, and because she was a sister. And what she had to say to him she couldn't only limit to what she felt would keep his love for her safe from harm. She couldn't give him only half honesty. She couldn't tell him that what he'd done to Omar was wrong, and not tell him anything about herself, keep herself in hiding for fear he'd turn her away. If she wanted to be better than she had been when May had needed her and she'd failed her, if she wanted to be more than the girl who'd had no voice when her brother was being thrown out, then she had to tell her father everything that was in her. She had to expose herself to a censure similar to the ones May and Omar had suffered. She wasn't seeking punishment, it wasn't mere self-reproach; it was seeing clearly how lonely she and Omar had been in their own family and wanting something else for them all, something better.

"I—" Nadia began. "I—don't want to be a coward."

"You think you're a coward?" Guzmán sounded incredulous. "I don't know anyone who's less of one."

"I haven't spoken to my father yet," Nadia said, "but I will. Soon. I can't put it off for much longer."

Nadia knew Guzmán understood her family was important to her, but did he really know what she could lose?

"And I'm scared."

And her fear was in proportion to all she wanted. She wanted Guzmán. She wanted her father and mother. She wanted Las Encinas. She wanted Omar. She wanted May. She wanted her home. She wanted the acceptance letter she'd already gotten, and she wanted ones from the other universities she'd applied to, too. She wanted to be filial, to be a good daughter, and to be loved for being so. She wanted the new friends she'd made and the nights she spent out with them. She wanted the childhood she remembered and cherished without it being tainted by the distance now in her family. She wanted the future she'd worked so hard for—New York, an education that could support her ambitions. She wanted her ambition. She wanted herself. And all this she would tell her father.

If he reacted badly, if he told her not to see Guzmán again, that she had changed in ways that made him want her away from him, Nadia didn't know if she had it in her to chose everything else she wanted over her family. If she was made to cut herself up, made to chose among all the essential parts of her, she didn't know if she would choose Guzmán, or if she even wanted to. Nadia could break his heart, she had before. She could break her own, easily; but having been a Shanaa all her life, and knowing her own history, knowing how alone her parents would be without her, and how bereft and adrift she'd feel without them, she didn't think she could break their hearts. She'd choose them over herself.

"What are you afraid of?" Guzmán asked. But it was so much, Nadia couldn't speak. Guzmán brought a hand up to her face. His touch was so tender it made Nadia feel like she was weak with it. She closed her eyes and leaned into it. "You'll say it's not enough," he said, "but you know I love you, right?"

Nadia knew. She hadn't wanted to face this today. She'd wanted it to be a moment of only happiness for them. She hadn't wanted Guzmán to be reminded of all the ways she could disappoint him.

"I don't want you to worry about me, or about us," he said. "Nadia, look at me." H is voice broke on her name, but when Nadia met his eyes his gaze was steady and sure. It gave her courage. "What I mean is I'm here. I'll be here. Now and whenever you want. You won't lose me. You can't. I promise, ok?"

It was exactly what Nadia had come to know of him, and what she loved so much about him, more than how he challenged her or how he made her laugh—his steadfastness, that he would give himself to her, even if she couldn't have him.

"Okay," she said, her voice coming out of her shaky.

Guzmán looked at her the way he did that made her feel delicate and open. Nadia raised her fingers to his lips, just because she wanted to touch him there. He kissed her fingertips, and then he pulled her to him. He kissed her, open-mouthed and seeking, and it pulled at the longing for him she had in her, made it unfurl to fill her up with how much she wanted him, how good it felt to have him like this, and how hollow she would feel to have him gone from her. She trembled with it, but Guzmán held her as they kissed, his hands warm and firm against her body, and Nadia moved her own from his chest to his shoulders to his neck and the back of his head, the path familiar to her. She took what was hers, gloried in it, and offered what she could of herself up to Guzmán in return.

When they broke apart Guzmán tucked the blanket around their shoulders again. Together, arms wrapped around each other and faces close, they whispered secrets into each other's ears. Some of them they heard above the rhythm of the waves, some of them were lost in them. But it didn't matter. It was the telling that mattered, that they each of them felt safe enough with the other to utter the secrets aloud. Nadia was still afraid, but she trusted that they'd have other chances to confess. For the longest time she'd held what they had between them as something she had just for now, only for now, but right then, after Guzmán made his promise to her, she held it with something else. She held it with a hope, though it was small, though it felt fragile, that she could have him a long while yet, and they could last a long, long time.

Under the blanket, Guzmán unscrewed the Thermos Nadia'd brought. He poured a warm cup into the lid and they passed it between each other, sipping and warming their hands. Nadia savored this, savored him. This moment was hers. With some courage, with some hope, her future could be hers, too.

/

Guzmán visited her family shop every weekend, now. He'd showed up once after that first day, early in the morning so that he'd only just missed her parents leaving, and spent an entire other day with her there. Then he'd showed up again, and again, and again. He knew their regulars and the names of the men who delivered their vegetables, and he didn't need Nadia to give him directions when a local delivery order came in. One Sunday he brought Nadia flowers, set them out on the counter for her, and the next day a customer came up to Nadia's father and asked him if he was planning to start selling flowers, and if so he had a cousin who'd give him a wholesale discount on roses from the countryside; Nadia played ignorant when her father asked her about it.

This lasted a month before Nadia made herself tell Guzmán tot stop coming. She insisted she didn't need the help and that she was fine on her own, but he didn't believe her. He questioned her—didn't she use the few hours he was there to study, and wasn't it better that she could go and pray when she needed to without shutting down the shop, and wasn't he good to the customers, and didn't she like the company? Nadia couldn't say no to any of these, and when he took to simply leaning against the glass of the shop, nodding and greeting every customer who stared at him as they came in, Nadia, exasperated with him and annoyed at herself at how she wanted to kiss him, pulled him into the store by his elbow, stationed him behind the counter, and ignored his smug smile.

It came to an end late one Sunday morning.

Nadia was behind the counter, and Guzmán was unloading chayote squash near the back of the store. They'd chosen a pop playlist that was playing over a speaker Guzmán had brought with him, and they were both taking turns singing along with it when Nadia's father walked in. He pushed the door open and the chimes rang, and Nadia looked up and their eyes locked, and in that moment her heart truly stopped. An American rapper was singing about "wondering when she'll be mine," and Guzmán's voice came along with it with, "I press rewind to see that ass one more time." If right then her father's face wasn't twisted up in fury, if right then her mother didn't come up behind him and gasp, one hand over her mouth, if cold dread wasn't spreading up her neck and down her arms, Nadia would have laughed. And then it wasn't just Guzmán's voice, but himself. He came up the aisle holding a squash in his hand, and before he looked up, before Nadia could find her voice to warn him, he said, "What is this shit, anyway?"

"Get out." Her father's voice was low, but loud enough to be heard over the music. It was dangerous. There was an edge to it Nadia had never heard before. There was anger, but something else, too, and Nadia feared it was a threat of violence.

Guzmán looked up. He said only, "Mr. Shanaa."

Animation came to Nadia then, and in a clumsy, frantic movement she grabbed for the speaker and shut it off. The shop became absolutely silent.

Nadia kept still, her eyes never leaving her father and her heart beating wildly, but Guzmán walked calmly up to the counter. He placed the squash on it, then turned to Nadia's father.

"Mr. Shanaa," he repeated. His voice was low, too, controlled. Nadia recognized the look on his face. Mouth even, brows drawn, jaw tight. It was the look he got when his pride and stubbornness and anger, qualities which were never far from him, came to the fore, just below his words and ready to break open.

"Guzmán—" she started, but faltered.

Guzmán held his hand out, but Nadia's father didn't take it. It hung in the air between them for a moment that stretched like a limb on a rack. Then Guzmán actually smiled. He stepped to the side and offered his hand to Nadia's mother.

"It's nice to see you again, Mrs. Shanaa," he said. Nadia's mother did take his hand, out of shock, Nadia thought, and Guzmán said, "You look lovely today. Did you take Mr. Shanaa to his therapy session? Nadia and I weren't expecting you until later."

Nadia's father shot her a sharp look and all Nadia could do was shake her head mutely. Her father stepped roughly in between Guzmán and her mother. It wasn't a shove, he didn't even touch Guzmán, but he might as well have. "I said get out." He banged his cane on the floor and pointed at the door.

Guzmán stepped aside, away from the door. He walked further into the store, to the counter, closer to Nadia.

"I'm not leaving," he said.

"Excuse me?" Nadia's father said.

"I cam here to help Nadia, and that's what I'm going to do."

Nadia's father went to Guzmán and stood over him so that there was barely an inch between their faces. He didn't look like a man who'd had a stroke in the past few months, who walked with a cane. He looked his full six-foot-two, looked the fútbol player he'd been at Guzmán's age.

"Help?" he barked out. "Why would Nadia need help from you? What can you possibly help her with? You have nothing to offer her."

Guzmán didn't even pause. "I can offer her time. You seem to think she has so much of it, but all she ever does is work here."

"Time for what? To go to nightclubs with this bum?" Nadia's father said this to her, but Guzmán moved back in his line of sight.

"Time for school, time for her to study, time for her to be her age."

"Nadia has enough time for school."

"You don't even know what she wants—"

"Guzmán—" Nadia cut in.

"And you do?" her father said.

"Yes, because she actually tells me, because she isn't scared of me, like she is of you."

"Guzmán!" Nadia cried.

Nadia's father shook his head. There was a look of disgust on his face. "That's not fear. You wouldn't understand it. It's respect."

But Guzmán continued as if he hadn't heard him. "Hire someone else to work here so Nadia can study without driving herself into the ground. I'll do it if you can't afford it."

Nadia's father dropped his cane to the floor, and it was only that that gave her mother the warning and the time to grab his arm and keep him from moving on Guzmán.

"Guzmán, please," Nadia said, right as her father began, "You think you know what she wants? What about what her family needs? School is important, but family is sacred."

"She shouldn't have to choose," Guzmán said. "Maybe you're too blind to see it, but Nadia isn't supposed to be sitting behind a counter selling fruit."

And all of a sudden Nadia understood. He'd been preparing for this. He was too calm, now, the words came too easily to him. The weeks he'd been coming, unloading stock, helping her with deliveries, helping her close down, he'd been waiting and aiming for this. Her breath came to her quickly and she was furious.

"Selling fruit's pulled my family out of poverty and pays for the clothes Nadia wears to that school," Nadia's father bit out. His voice was shaking. "You're a spoiled, clueless, rude brat who doesn't know the first thing about reality. Nadia shouldn't be behind this counter? What should she be doing instead? Running around, sleeping with whomever and getting HIV like your poor sister? Getting killed like her?"

Something tore through Nadia like a live wire.

"Yusef," Nadia's mother gasped.

Nadia made a fist, banged it hard against the counter. "Enough," she said. She could see Guzmán's fists by his side, how large his eyes had gone, how his nostrils flared.

"Guzmán," she said, and there was a finality to her voice. "Leave."

But he didn't move. He stood facing her father, staring him down, looking for all the world like he was ready to fight him.

With a curt, decisive move Nadia stepped between Guzmán and her father. She faced Guzmán, her back to her father, and only then did Guzmán look at her. She saw the rage in him. It was raw and ugly. But she also saw how he controlled it. She felt her own rage in her chest, hot and tight and demanding. But it wasn't all directed at him, or even mostly. No—even though Guzmán's is face was red with with his anger, even though he looked like all he wanted to do right then was make someone feel pain, Nadia didn't turn from him. Silently, she pushed against his shoulders and against his arms. He resisted her, so Nadia used her whole body, leaned into him to make him move, and finally he stepped back. He put his hands on her arms and they struggled for a moment, still without a word between them, but Nadia felt when the fight went out of him, when he went from pushing back against her to almost holding her. She didn't wait even a second, took the advantage to grab him by the elbow and tugged him the rest of the way across the store and out the door.

She shut it behind him, then locked it. She was breathing hard and looking down at her feet. Her arms were shaking from how much she was feeling. She waited an endless moment, until she was sure Guzmán had walked away. Without looking she turned the sign on the door from abierto to cerrado. She closed her eyes and took a deep, steadying breath.

Nadia turned to face her father.


End file.
